


You Will Know Our Names

by rarmaster



Series: YWKON [1]
Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: (but no more frequent than it is in the base game), Alternate Universe, Bodysharing, Canon-Typical Violence, Found Family, Freedom, Gen, Implied/Referenced Past Abuse, Non-Linear Narrative, Revolution, Sibling Love, Suicidal Ideation, also i have some other pretty clear ship biases otherwise but shh, i feel bad tagging this as yuan/botta when only 10 percent is them but, i know fans of this rarepair are Content Starved, technically a XC2 AU but rly i just stole XC2's lore and ran (while fixing it)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-19 22:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 71,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17010126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarmaster/pseuds/rarmaster
Summary: In a deeply flawed world built on the backbone of an oppressive system, our heroes fight back against the creation of a thoughtless god.Kratos finds his son. Martel loses her brother. Yuan lives his best life. Colette finds family. Sheena protects hers. Zelos finds his freedom. Raine regrets. Presea doubts. Genis hates. Mithos hopes. And Lloyd saves the world.Or: an introspective fic exploring the way familiar characters interact with and are affected by a new world.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is technically a crossover with Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and by crossover I really mean I just stole XC2's lore (about blades/drivers) and ran. I feel confident that the rules of the lore are lined out well enough in the fic itself for you to understand while having no knowledge of XC2, but if you're confused or want a list of specifics, [I do have a lore doc for you!](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1udcGNExGnyw7pdHK3IWm5At1Rfm5szM6g1ZWLm05vcs/edit)
> 
> A visual guide for concepts like ether lines and core crystals (spanning the whole fic, spoilers marked) can be found [here!](http://rarmaster.tumblr.com/private/181155632430/tumblr_pjt76tU4Mq1roehl8)
> 
> big thanks to aera and Ruri, for helping me brainstorm / edit / hammer the lore / goblin it up / being cheerleaders the whole way!!!!!! ILU GUYS

Death is fast, and mostly painless.

There’s a sharp, sudden pain in his heart where the sword broke through from behind, and then Lloyd knows nothing.

Nothing.

Until he’s opening his eyes— _how the hell is he opening his eyes_ —to Kratos’ face hovering above him, brow pinched with concern. Lloyd blinks. Raises a hand against the blinding of the sun.

“Wh… what?” he asks.

“There you are,” Kratos says, and he breathes a sigh of relief. Kratos holds out a hand, and Lloyd takes it, letting the man pull him upright. Kratos’ hand lingers on his shoulder, supporting him, which Lloyd guesses he needs, because his head is spinning a little bit. “Are you alright?” Kratos asks.

Lloyd blinks a few more times around his spinning vision as his world settles. Something seems… _feels…_ different, he just can’t place what. Something about the blood—no, the _ether_ pumping through his veins. He didn’t realize he could be so aware of it.

“Y- yeah, I think I’m fine?” he answers, pushing at his hair. He looks at the rest of his companions, Genis and Raine and Colette. The three of them look… _really_ surprised.

“Then all is well,” Kratos says.

Lloyd turns to the man, squinting a bit, because something seems different about Kratos, too.

“How did you _do_ that!?” Raine demands, finally.

“Do what?” Lloyd asks, mind spinning to catch up because she sounds like she’s never seen anything like this before, which is something Lloyd isn’t used to at all. Also, hey, didn’t he die? That _had_ happened, right? Right?? “Kratos?”

His eyes finally fall on Kratos’ core crystal, and then he sees it. There’s a hole in the red diamond mounted on Kratos’ collarbone—it’s perfectly symmetrical, as if someone had cut it out with careful hands, leaving an outline of a diamond in Kratos’ skin. Lloyd squints. When did _that_ happen?

“It was something I learned from an old friend,” Kratos explains, vaguely.

“Learned what? What did you do?” Lloyd asks, because he’s absolutely sure he died and yet somehow he’s alive, even though humans don’t get reborn the way blades do, and everyone’s gaping at Kratos, and part of Kratos’ core crystal is missing, and there’s that _burning_ in Lloyd’s veins that wasn’t there before.

“Look at your chest,” Colette whispers, gentle.

Lloyd does.

A red diamond sits over his heart, which is where he got stabbed. He might not be good at math, but he’d wager that it’s about the perfect size to fit in the hole left in Kratos’ core crystal. The realization leaves him a little winded.

“What… _What_?” He lifts his hand to touch it. It’s warm, though definitely smooth, like a rock.

“It was the only way to save you,” Kratos explains, and there’s a gentleness in his voice that startles Lloyd. When Lloyd looks up at him again, there’s such a soft smile on his lips, such a relief burning in his eyes, that Lloyd feels completely bowled over. “Hopefully you don’t mind having a piece of me with you forever, now… but I figured you might prefer it over the alternative.”

“Well, yeah,” Lloyd says, because that’s true. “But… why would you…?”

Somehow, Kratos’ smile becomes even fonder.

“Because you’re my son.”

 

\- - -

 

The fresh, wonderful feeling of breath filling his lungs as he reforms is a feeling Yuan is sure he could never forget, even if all of his other memories fade between lifetimes—which is, unfortunately, the way of blades. Such an infuriating system, though Yuan will not think these things for a little while longer, because the only thoughts he currently has to him are that he is awake and that he has a purpose to serve, a driver to follow.

He looks for the one who awakened him, and finds a man who looks a little surprised. The man holds a thick—familiar?—leather-bound book in one hand, and the other one is outstretched.

“Hello,” Yuan says, since the man seems too startled to say anything just yet. “I’m Yuan.”

“Hello,” the man replies, blinking. “I’m Botta.”

“I take it you’re my new driver?” Yuan asks. For some reason, though he has no conscious memory of any of his other drivers, he feels like this one’s going to be a good one.

“Yeah,” Botta replies, “but more importantly—” He holds the book out for Yuan to take. “This has your name on it.”

And so it does.

Yuan takes the book—it feels familiar, in his hands—and squints at his own name on the front cover, then opens to the first page. There, written in handwriting he assumes must be his own, is the following:

> _Kratos said it would be a good idea to keep a journal of my memories, so that should I die, I’d still have some kind of record of who the hell I was before the new life was given to me. If that man has anything, it’s sense, and… though I hate to admit it, he has a point. There’s no fate worse than death other than rebirth with no memory._
> 
> _So, future Yuan: Here’s all the shit we got up to, and here’s hoping we still remember it at whatever point you’re reading this._

\- - -

 

The Sage siblings have a secret.

They say they are a blade and a driver—Raine the blade, Genis the driver—but that is not true. Anyone who was really looking could probably spot all the inconsistencies in the story, could see the faint glow of a core crystal that emanates from beneath Genis’ clothes, would know that Raine is not a blade that specializes in offense.

But truthfully? Kratos only realizes they are lying because he is like they are.

“Perhaps you should tell Lloyd the truth,” Kratos suggests softly to Raine when he catches himself alone with her, not sure how else to go about it. “I do not believe he will judge, and I know Martel won’t.” Colette, either, because she is so much like Martel.

Raine does a very good job at pretending she has no idea what he’s talking about. “Truth? About _what_?” she demands.

“About you and your brother,” Kratos elaborates, hoping that will be enough for her to catch on. The truth of what they are isn’t exactly a thing to be ashamed of, but he also knows that hundreds of years of prejudice make it hard to shake the feeling that it is.

Raine scowls, and now Kratos feels bad for putting her in this position. He resolves that if she denies it again he’ll let it drop.

“How did you know?” is what Raine asks. Not an answer. But not a denial. All but a confirmation.

The smile that pulls on Kratos’ lips is understanding, but bitter.

“Because I was part of the initial experiments that created flesh eaters,” he answers.

Raine blinks. And then she looks at him, _really_ looks at him, and Kratos watches as recognition lights in her eyes. He wasn’t keeping it a secret, exactly—he is a blade with no driver in sight, something which _should_ be impossible—but he hasn’t exactly been flaunting his condition, either.

After the initial shock passes, Raine lowers her head, shame seeming to grip her again. When she opens her mouth, Kratos raises a hand to stop her.

“I do not need to know, the circumstances that made you and your brother like this. It doesn’t matter. I do not judge.”

“But isn’t it despicable?” Raine demands, hot and bitter, answering the question he did not ask. “To have done so _willingly_?”

“It is not despicable to want to keep on living,” Kratos says. And, for all the problems that come with being a flesh eater, never once has he begrudged his lack of need for a driver. It’s freeing. “It is not despicable to wish to keep your memories, either.”

( _Had Yuan the chance before he and Martel died, Kratos thinks he might have chosen the same._ )

 

\- - -

 

 “My name is Fujibayashi Sheena,” says the girl who stopped them. Her blade—a small, foxlike creature with many tails—sits on her shoulder. “I was sent by Tethe’alla to capture the Aegis.”

Lloyd scoffs, a determined grin on his lips and Colette’s sword in his hands as he steps forward to protect her. “Like we’d let you take Colette!”

Sheena smiles. It is not a kind smile.

“I’m not actually here to kidnap her, though,” she says. She slides into a fighting stance, pulling ether-charged cards out from her pockets, while her blade jumps off her shoulder. “Why the hell would I want to be the one responsible for bringing in my best friend’s replacement, huh? I could never do that!”

“Replacement…?” Kratos echoes in surprise.

Sheena continues as if she didn’t hear him. “So I thought to myself—I’ll just kill her instead! _Then Zelos won’t have to bear the weight of being a spare anymore!_ ”

Those furious words leaving her lips, she runs forward to attack.

 

\- - -

 

 “What’s this?” Lloyd asks, looking at the core crystal sitting on the kitchen table. It’s completely dark, which isn’t unusual. Sometimes it takes blades a while to be ready to reactivate.

“Oh, that,” Dirk says. “I found it in the field earlier today. Dunno how it got there.”

“Huh.”

Lloyd figures since it’s inactive, there’s no harm picking it up, and he wants to study its shape a little better. But the moment it’s in his hands, it comes to life. There’s a flash of pink light, a tingling under Lloyd’s skin, and—

“Oh!” Lloyd says.

“Oh!” Dirk says.

“Oh!” says the girl that materializes from the crystal. She has blonde hair and a cute face, and the crystal sits in her collarbone. ( _Lloyd is too startled to get a good look at it now, but the crystal is unlike any other core crystal he’s ever seen. Emerald green, except with pink threaded through it like flower petals, or wings maybe, flourishing outward from a central point. He assumes it’s an Aegis thing. Colette doesn’t tell him it isn’t.)_

The three of them blink at each other, and then the girl waves. The ether lines in her palm glow pink, but for a second Lloyd swears he sees green.

“Um, hi?” she says. “I’m Colette!” She smiles for a moment, but then something about Lloyd catches her eye, and she squints. “Do I… know you from somewhere? You look familiar.”

“I- what?” Lloyd is completely taken aback by this turn of events.

Colette takes a step closer, peering into his face. “Your eyes,” she says. “Red’s an odd color for a human.”

“I. I mean, I guess so,” Lloyd says, because she’s right, but that doesn’t make anything else going on here make any more sense. “I- Sorry if this is rude, but how could you recognize me? I thought… blades don’t have memories…?”

“Oh.” Colette takes a step back, her face going blank. “Right. It must be my imagination.” She giggles. “After all, I can’t seem to remember who it was you remind me of!”

“Maybe a blade’s memories can leak,” Dirk muses.

Lloyd, however, has already stopped thinking about that. “Anyway, I’m Lloyd!” he tells Colette, holding out his hand for her to shake. “I guess this means I’m your driver now?”

Colette giggles again, and takes his hand. “I guess so!” she agrees.

Everyone who sees Lloyd and Colette together say they’re a driver/blade pair made by the Architect himself. Though, truthfully, Lloyd finds himself a little disappointed when Colette only has one sword to offer him. For some reason, it feels… incomplete.

 

\- - -

 

When Kratos sees a flash of blue-hair in the crowd, his breath catches.

“Yuan…?”

The man perks up at the sound of his name, grabbing the hand of the man next to him to pull him to a stop before he swivels around to see who called out to him. There’s a moment of hesitation, Yuan’s head cocked to the side as he studies Kratos, and Kratos dares to hope that there is recognition in his eyes.

(There isn’t.)

“Was that you who called?” Yuan asks, as he approaches with his driver, which later introductions will tell Kratos and his companions is named Botta.

Kratos nods, shortly.

Yuan looks him up and down, judging him if not recognizing him. “You know me?” he asks, and it’s a genuine, almost hopeful question.

(Kratos wonders how long Yuan has been chasing the man he used to be.)

Kratos hesitates.

“N… no,” he answers. Is it not better, if Yuan forgets? If he does not know the pain his family has been through, the things they have sunken to, these past four hundred years?

Yuan’s eyes flash with anger. “Wrong answer,” he says, and reels his fist back before slamming it into Kratos’ mouth in a hit that sends Kratos stumbling back.

Behind him, Lloyd’s hand flies to his own jaw, feeling the pain as sharply as if Yuan had punched _him_. Genis, protective of his friend, the one who trusts him despite knowing the truth about him, goes to step forward, but Colette—or rather, Martel through Colette—holds him back, because she knows Yuan needs this.

“You’re Kratos, aren’t you?” Yuan demands, while Kratos is still straightening.

Kratos cannot find the words to answer, his eyes flicking away from Yuan’s face in shame.

“Don’t play coy!” Yuan presses, taking another step towards Kratos. Botta hangs back, content to let this happen, because he signed up long ago for a mission to help his blade understand the truth of who he used to be. “Your name is all over my journal—a journal that _you_ told me to write! I’ve been searching for more about me, more about _you,_ for the past _ten years._ Maybe I don’t remember you, but I definitely recognize you!”

“Yuan,” Kratos manages, though he still cannot make himself look Yuan in the eye.

“But the one thing, the _one thing_ I want to know more than anything else,” Yuan spits through clenched teeth. “Is why you _abandoned me_.”

(Dying and forgetting, Yuan can understand. But being abandoned by a man who his journal says was his friend—his _brother,_ if not by blood then by heart—for four hundred years is impossible to accept.)

Kratos withers, under Yuan’s words. Raine has to hold Lloyd back, this time.

“We lost you,” Kratos whispers, in explanation, head hung low. It is selfish, but he does not want to see the pain in Yuan’s face. The pain in his voice is already too much to bear. “We lost Martel, and we lost you. They took both of your crystals.”

“And you didn’t _look_ for me?” Yuan asks. “You had four hundred years to find me!”

Kratos opens his mouth. Closes it. He could have searched for Yuan. And maybe he even would have succeeded, since Yuan was a regular blade, and would have been registered and put back into circulation. But he didn’t even try.

“I… didn’t want you to remember,” Kratos says, voice cracking in the depths of his shame. “I didn’t want you to see what had become of us.”

Of him, and of Mithos.

Because by now, Mithos is convinced that humanity’s complete eradication is the only answer to anything, and up until recently, Kratos believed the same. He didn’t want the remainders of his family to know that.

But there was no running away from them, was there?

They all came back to him, in turn. Martel, Yuan, even Lloyd, despite all the odds.

“Asshole!” Yuan shouts, and Kratos deserves it. “Bastard!! I don’t _care_ about any of that!!”

“I’m sorry,” Kratos mumbles.

“You should be!” Yuan says.

Kratos flinches preemptively when Yuan takes another step forward, but this time Yuan does not move to hit Kratos. Instead he wraps his arms around the man, pulling him into a tight hug and tucking his chin into Kratos’ shoulder.

“We’re _brothers,_ aren’t we, Kratos?” Yuan whispers, eyes squeezed shut.

He does not remember being that, but he has his journal, and the man he used to be believed that passionately—that he and Kratos were, that he and Kratos would always be—and it’s hard to deny that part of himself, feels wrong to strip it away and discard it.

So Yuan squeezes Kratos, holds him a little tighter. “Brothers stick together, even in the worst of it.”

It takes Kratos a long moment, but finally he returns the hug.

(Yuan joins them on their travels, of course. He’s spent too long searching to understand himself to separate from the ones that know him better than anyone else. And besides, in his journal, he’d left himself a note:

 _"Kratos will try to push you away. Don't let him; he needs you more than he'll admit."_ )

 

\- - -

 

 “I’m sorry…” Regal whispers.

Presea looks at the man dying beneath her hands. Hot tears roll non-stop down her cheeks. Alicia’s heart beats in her chest. She doesn’t think this is what Alicia would have wanted. She’s beginning to think maybe it wasn’t what she wanted either.

“Me too,” she whispers back.

 

\- - -

 

Lloyd and Genis sit on a large boulder not far out in a lake—Umacy, Genis thinks he remembers Kratos saying, though he’s been kind of distracted all day. He told Lloyd the news about him and Raine being flesh eaters, and Lloyd took the news surprisingly well? There’s still a knot in Genis’ chest though, like this is too good to be true, like…

“Can I…?” Lloyd asks, reaching for Genis’ hand.

“Uh, sure?” Genis says, distracted and confused by the request. He holds out his hand for Lloyd to take. There’s an instinctive clutch of fear and a couple other awful things in his chest, as Lloyd grabs him, but it’s quashed immediately by how gentle Lloyd’s touch is.

Lloyd turns Genis’ bare hand over in his own, marveling at the ether lines Genis stopped hiding. (It’s nice, not wearing gloves all the damn time anymore.) Lloyd runs his fingers over the circle of ether etched into Genis’ palm. The touch makes Genis’ heart beat in a new way—double-time, light and breathless.

“Um,” Genis says.

“Sorry,” Lloyd apologizes, though he doesn’t let Genis go. He’s fixated. “It’s just… _really_ cool.” He smiles sheepishly at Genis, sheepishly and genuine, and, that’s new?

“What.”

“The ether lines,” Lloyd elaborates, though that’s not the problem Genis is finding with this situation.

He wants to pull his hand away, kind of ashamed, but he doesn’t want to stop feeling Lloyds thumb brushing against his skin either, so he just turns his head away and lets the shame bubble out of his mouth instead.

“They don’t even glow as bright as they’re supposed to,” he mumbles. His ether color is a light, powder blue, which means he used to glow as bright as the moon and the stars. Now the color is murky, the ether in his veins clogged with blood. The glow is faint, barely noticeable, especially while the sun’s still high.

“They’re still _really_ cool,” Lloyd insists. “It’s neat how every blade has a different ether color.”

“Sure,” Genis says, tugging his hand away, though for all his show his face is on fire. It’s stupid. It was barely even a compliment. But. Lloyd’s smiling so genuinely and he sounds so sincere and…

He’s still sitting here, by Genis, even though he knows the truth.

“Hey, Genis…?” Lloyd asks, as he places his hands on the rock on either side of him. He looks out to the distance, feet kicking aimlessly in the water beneath them.

“Yeah?”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” And the thing is, he doesn’t sound _upset._ Not really. Confused, maybe a little sad, but not _angry_ and it’s so surprising Genis forgets how to breathe for a moment.

“I…” Genis begins, hesitating both because of his surprise and… The weight of the lie and the truth both are heavy on his tongue. “Humans are… kind of… uniformly bad,” Genis mumbles.

He’s afraid that’s going to piss Lloyd off, but Lloyd just seems more confused. Genis’ heart still beats too fast in his chest, ether churning with discomfort.

“If… If they knew what we were, they’d treat us awful,” Genis continues. “So… we lied.”

“That’s why you left, huh?” Lloyd asks, starting to understand.

“Yeah.” The word is short, easy, but sharp, too. Genis hunches in his shoulders. Grips the edge of the rock. His legs aren’t long enough (yet) for more than his toes to grace the surface of the water. “We can only stay in one place for so long before someone starts to realize that I’m not aging as fast as humans are supposed to.”

( _Telling everyone that he was the blade and Raine the driver would have maybe fixed the problem—after all, it’d take much longer for anyone to realize Raine wasn’t aging—but… The thought of being someone’s blade again makes Genis’ skin crawl, even if in pretend._ )

“That makes sense,” Lloyd assures Genis, another offering to show he isn’t mad, which Genis is still wildly unused to but also immensely grateful for. “But I wish you’d said goodbye instead of just leaving a note!” He laughs along with it, so Genis knows he’s joking—that laugh is too bright and too loud to be faked—and catches himself before he nudges Genis playfully.

Genis wants to laugh along, but the weight of all of this still sits too heavy in his chest.

“I didn’t want to leave you,” Genis whispers, soft and sad. “I didn’t want to say goodbye. You were—”

He cuts off.

The first person that made him feel special—no, _normal._ Like it was okay just being him, just being Genis Sage. Lloyd didn’t expect things too big for him. Lloyd didn’t ask too much of him. Lloyd didn’t ask _anything_ of him, ever.

It was freeing. It was intoxicating. He didn’t want to let it go, but—

He lived in fear, too. Of Lloyd finding out the truth, and then Lloyd _changing,_ Lloyd treating him differently badly just like every human before—

(It was probably unfair, to place so much on Lloyd’s shoulders, anyway. Maybe even a little unhealthy. So Genis had let go, and made the break as clean as he could.)

“I was what?” Lloyd presses.

Genis blushes, a murky glow in his cheeks as blood and ether both rush to them. The thought is still kind of heavy, but bottling it up _now_ seems absurd. So, taking a breath, Genis admits, voice low:

“You were the first real friend I ever really had.”

“Oh… _Genis_ ,” Lloyd says, and he sounds. Sad. _Fond_. His voice is full of love that Genis isn’t used to receiving.

Genis keeps his head down, playing with his fingers, but he smiles, too, and lets the warmth of the thought fill him to bursting.

 

\- - -

 

The Sylvaranti military is persistent, if nothing else. They manage to defeat most of the squadron that was sent after them—after Colette, after the Aegis—but the best of the best, a warrior by the name of Magnius and his terrifying blade still remain. Magnius’ blade is a bear-like creature twice the size of him, with dark fur and bright red ether lines that light up the night against Colette’s glowing pink. (Raine and Genis and Kratos do not glow bright enough to provide much light at all, not anymore.)

Even five on two, Lloyd and co. are exhausted from the long battle before this moment. Magnius doesn’t even have a scratch on him.

Kratos, who is faring the best of all of them, rushes forward. His sword is aimed for a hole in Magnius’ armor, hoping to end this and end it quick.

But Magnius’ blade intercepts, and it throws him back with a terrible swipe of its claws.

Kratos goes sprawling.

He does not shout, but Lloyd does, as roaring pain swipes down his own chest. It’s difficult to breathe. He falls to his knees.

“No!” Colette shouts.

And then:

“ _No_!” she shouts again, but her voice is a little different, a little older.

There’s a flash of green light.

It flares, and then fills the battlefield, a warm, gentle energy that fills up Lloyd’s bones and eases his pain. Kratos, who recognizes the cradle of this ether, forgets how to breathe for a moment.

When the light settles, Colette is gone, and standing in her place is a woman with green hair.

“Kratos!” she shouts, then seems to remember herself. “Lloyd!”

At the behest of his blade, Lloyd gets back to his feet. The sword in his hands, which is white with what is usually a glowing bar of pure pink light down its center, now glows green.

“Who…?” Lloyd asks, stealing a glance at her.

“ _Martel_ …” Kratos whispers, at the same moment.

“Focus,” Martel insists. “There will be time later. I can stop the blade’s movements so we can get a clear hit on Magnius. Lloyd—” There is a catch, in her voice, a hesitation, and then she composes herself. “Do you know what to do?” she asks, and Lloyd can catch a hint of something wistful bleeding through their connection to each other.

( _It’s weird, for her, to have a new driver, while her old is one laying on the ground not ten feet from her. Kratos would not even need to be told what to do, and she misses—selfishly—how well they worked together.)_

“Gotcha!” Lloyd says with a nod, because being blade and driver means some things don’t need to be communicated with words. He raises their sword to the sky, and the light around it builds to blinding as Martel channels her power through it, through him.

“SHINING BIND!” they call in unison.

Chains of light wrap themselves around Magnius’ bear, swiftly and thoroughly keeping it immobilized. It struggles against its restraints, and Lloyd can feel the sweat on Martel’s brow, because restraining an enemy this large—after so many years out of practice, with a new, inexperienced driver—is difficult. But they keep the bear restrained long enough for Kratos ( _even still, working perfectly in tandem with Martel_ ) to rush forward and cut Magnius open.

The moment Magnius dies, his blade does too.

“That was so cool!!” Lloyd hollers, as Martel’s sword vanishes from his hands, its purpose served. If there’s one thing Martel learns to like about him, it’s his endless enthusiasm. He spins around to look at Martel, still grinning. “I didn’t know we could do that?”

There’s a catch, though, in his expression as his eyes meet Martel’s. His smile falls a fraction.

“Hey, though, where’s Colette?” he asks. He is not trying to be rude.

“It’s…” Martel begins, but isn’t sure where to start. The relationship between her and Colette is complicated, because no one should Be the way the two of them are. “Hang on, it might be better if I let her explain.”

 

\- - -

 

 “Are you sure about this?” they ask her, again. She doesn’t remember their face very well.

“Of course,” Colette insists, hands folded tightly in front of her.

The world lost two Aegises.

The world created two new, artificial ones.

“We can’t guarantee you’ll survive,” the voice continues, persistent.

“That’s alright,” Colette says.

Her eyes are fixed on the broken emerald core crystal that lays on the table. A quarter of it is missing. More than half of what remains is cracked badly. She can’t imagine the pain the blade that lives in that crystal is going through. She doesn’t want them to be hurting. If offering them some of her own core crystal can fix it, then…

That’s more than enough for Colette.

The eyes that look at her are surprised, but they are also cold. Those that created her have never cared much for her wellbeing.

What is an Aegis but a weapon, after all?

( _Colette wonders if this will be a freedom. She thinks it will be_.)

“If you’re sure,” they tell her.

The world created two artificial Aegises.

It lost one of those, too.

 

\- - -

 

There’s a burst of life within Mithos’ core crystal so sudden, so beautiful that it winds him completely. A circuit connects, completes.

Martel’s shards in his core are burning. She’s awake again.

“There you are, sis,” he whispers.

He cradles his core crystal in his hand, and he grins.

 

\- - -

 

A girl blocks their path up the mountains. She stands straight and rigid, one hand resting on the axe that sticks out of the ground next to her. She looks to be Lloyd’s age, perhaps a few years younger, but it is hard to tell with blades, sometimes.

Lloyd starts to step forward, but Kratos puts out a hand to hold him back. Lloyd sends him a questioning look, but Kratos doesn’t explain.

He steps forward.

“Presea,” he says.

“Kratos,” she says, in return.

There is a moment’s pause. Presea speaks.

“Mithos sent me,” she explains, eyes drilling into Kratos. “To see what was taking you so long.”

Kratos hesitates before he gives his answer. “There’s been some… delays.”

Presea’s eyes flick over Kratos’ companions. Colette and Lloyd, the Sage siblings, Yuan and Botta. Certainly more than this mission needed. Even if it was going to have been slow, traveling with the Aegis while trying to avoid capture, this has slowed him down much more than he “should” have let it.

Kratos knows this.

Presea knows this.

“…So I see,” she says, at length.

“The,” Kratos begins, his mouth dry. He feels caught red-handed, even though he’s beginning to think his and Mithos’ ideals don’t quite align anymore. “Martel’s driver, and his friends…”

“Why are they necessary?” Presea asks, quick to the point, as she always is.

The plan had been to kill whoever had awakened Martel, truthfully. Then Kratos could reprise his role as her driver. But…

 _But_.

Kratos’ eyes flick over to Martel’s— _Colette’s_ —current driver. Lloyd.

“He is my son,” he says.

Presea is silent for a moment. Kratos watches her look between him and Lloyd, calculating, likely taking in the nature of their shared condition. There’s a moment where Kratos fears that she will judge, call him a hypocrite—because Mithos built the empire she is part of on the idea that blades do not owe humans _anything_ , and for a blade to willingly give up piece of their core crystal for one is despicable—but he knows the heart that beats in her chest, knows the love she holds for her sister. He thinks she understands.

It’s just a matter of if her understanding will interfere with the orders Mithos gave her. Did Mithos send her to help, to gather information, to take over? Kratos does not wish to face her in battle. Likely, they would win, because seven against one is unfair odds, but it is not losing that bothers him.

Finally, Presea breathes again, blue eyes meeting Kratos’ red.

“I see,” she says. “Understood.” The axe comes out of the ground, vanishes in a small eruption of dark-pink light. “Should I go tell Mithos the reasons for your delay, then?”

“I think he’ll understand better if I explain,” Kratos says. Or, he hopes. Architect, he _hopes_ Mithos is not too far gone to understand something as simple as doing things for your family.

Presea nods. She knows that as much as Mithos trusts her, that he and Kratos are close, very close. “Then I will just tell him you were delayed,” she decides. She begins to turn to head up the mountains, then rethinks.

She turns back to Kratos, then her eyes flicker towards Colette.

“He’s on his way, just so you know,” she says, her voice no less firm, but still a little quieter than usual. “He has been, since Martel woke up. He can feel it. Can feel her. I just can move more freely than he can.”

( _Mithos is not stupid. He knows well enough that humanity would turn him into a weapon if they ever got their hands on him again. Traveling in the open is not an option for him as much as it is not for Martel, for Colette._ )

 

\- - -

Yuan pulls Martel aside, one night.

“Hey, uh,” he says, scratching at the back of his neck.

Martel raises her eyebrows. “Yes?” Usually Yuan gets straight to the point of things, unless he’s being deliberately secretive just to be obnoxious.

Now he coughs into his hand. Clearly, whatever it is, he finds the subject difficult. Even if Martel is no longer his driver, even if he is a man with different memories, he’s still fairly easy to read.

“Look,” Yuan says finally, daring a nervous glance into her eyes. “I know we were a thing, in the past, but I don’t think we can really, um- that we can…”

Martel blinks.

This is not where she expected this conversation to go.

“Oh, I,” she says.

“What?” Yuan asks, squinting at her confusion.

It takes Martel a moment to gather her thoughts, as she hastily reexamines the past month and all of the things she’s observed about Yuan, because if he thinks this still needs to be discussed between them then maybe…

Hm.

“I thought you and Botta were married,” Martel admits, just because Yuan needs an answer from her and she needs an answer from him. “So I wasn’t even going to ask.”

She can see Yuan’s mind stop working.

“I,” he stammers. “I- _excuse me_ ,” he says.

“Are you _not_?” Martel asks, because if they aren’t she sure has been reading a _lot_ into their interactions with each other.

Yuan rakes a hand through his hair. “I mean, we’re together,” he says, and Martel breathes a small sigh of relief because that means she has only been reading a _little_ into the way Yuan and Botta interact. (In her defense, so has Kratos, so has Colette, so has everyone except maybe Lloyd.) “But we aren’t,” Yuan stammers, having trouble with the words. “We aren’t, fucking—”

“You’re definitely fucking him,” Martel interrupts. She can’t help herself.

Yuan’s cheeks glow blue as ether rushes to them. “ALRIGHT!” he snaps in protest.

Martel laughs, delighted. Yuan buries his face in his hands.

She gives him a moment to compose himself, then says:

“Besides, it would have been… difficult, to pick up where the two of us left off, considering, well, _my_ circumstances.”

Yuan lifts his face out of his hands.

“What about them?” he asks, with raised eyebrows. Then he smirks. “You and Kratos get hitched?”

Martel rolls her eyes, though she supposes it’s the least she deserves.

“ _Yuan_ ,” she says.

It takes him a moment, but then he catches on.

“Oh that’s right you’re, you’re literally tied to two teenagers, aren’t you,” he says.

Martel nods. If sharing a body with a sixteen year old girl didn’t make it awkward enough, her driver wasn’t much older, and…

“Considering the emotion bleed,” she says, aloud. Emotions bleed naturally from blade to driver and back. And she’s found she has much difficulty keeping anything secret from Colette, these days.

“Yeah, that would be…” Yuan says, but doesn’t finish. He doesn’t need to.

“Yeah,” Martel says.

Yuan looks embarrassed. “Sorry.”

“No, don’t be!” Martel assures him. “It’s nothing to apologize about. Besides, you and Botta seem… _really_ happy.”

Yuan blushes again and turns his head away, hiding his pretty smile with a hand. “Yeah, he’s. He was. Very good to me,” he says. “Still is.”

( _Botta always put Yuan first. Botta followed him for ten years on a fool’s quest to find out more about who he used to be, never complaining once, always saying he was happy to help. It was nice, because Yuan knew—even if he couldn’t remember—that Botta was the first driver he’d had besides Martel that actively wanted good things, the best things, for Yuan, instead of merely seeing Yuan as a tool.)_

Martel smiles at the sight of Yuan’s smile, leans a little into him, her smile growing conspiratorial as she declares:

“You should marry him.”

Yuan wheezes.

Martel laughs.

“I’m serious!” she insists, grinning brightly. “Make it official! What’s stopping you!!”

Yuan considers it a moment, and then slowly, he grins as well. “You’re. _Absolutely._ Correct.” He looks delighted by the idea. It makes Martel delighted, as well.

(She still loves him. Of course she does.)

“That’s my Yuan,” she says, pushing him lightly in the shoulder.

He sends her a look. “You sure you don’t mind?”

Martel laughs and shakes her head. “Of _course_ I don’t mind! I’m _happy_ for you!! It’s wonderful that you found someone who loves you this much.” And she’d never be selfish enough to take him away from that, just to continue something that ended four hundred years ago. Yuan deserves better than that. “I’ll only be upset if I’m not invited to the wedding,” she tells him.

Yuan laughs.

“Trust me, you’ll be Maid of Honor.”

 

\- - -

 

If Sheena knows anything about the Aegis and his driver, it’s that they’re both fucking miserable.

“That’s right! The Great Zelos, the Aegis, the pride and joy of Tethe’alla!” Zelos calls one last time, as he backs off the stage and gives one final bow to the gathered crowd of theoretically adoring fans. Once the lights dim and he’s behind the curtains he deflates visibly, trotting down the steps to join Sheena backstage.

“You did great out there,” she tells him. Corrine hops from her shoulder to Zelos’, giving him a reaffirming nuzzle on the cheek.

“Yeah, of course I did,” Zelos answers, with an annoyed flap of his hand. He scratches Corrine behind the ear, though. “Not that I see the point in this PR stunt if they’re just gonna replace me the moment they get the chance.”

“It’s stupid,” Sheena agrees, though she knows, and so does Zelos, what the point of this is.

Because, what does Tethe’alla currently have that Sylvarant doesn’t? An Aegis. One that isn’t running around with a bunch of outlaws, one that’s tightly under their control, one that will do what they tell them to. It’s what makes Tethe’alla better than Sylvarant. And the people need to know that, in this time of unsteady peace (but when has the peace _ever_ been steady, Sheena wonders), the people need to know that Tethe’alla will win, should the countries fall to war again.

Sheena thinks the people can shove it up their collective ass.

“Hey, how do you think I feel?” says Seles, getting out of her chair. “It’s not like being the Aegis’s _driver_ is any kind of glamorous job. No one even knows I exist.”

“You’re the best driver I’ve ever had, at least,” Zelos counters, flashing Seles a grin that Sheena thinks errs more on the side of sincere than it usually does. “I’d rather you than one of those other stuffy government officials, they’re _nightmares_ to work with.”

Seles shrugs. “Sure. Still doesn’t mean I want to be here.”

Zelos laughs, loud, and hands Corrine back to Sheena. “Hey, me neither!”

There’s a fondness, that passes between the two of them, because they both understand something that Sheena never could. The weight of being forced into a role you never asked for, of being born when you didn’t ask to be, of being picked when you never volunteered. They share a knowing look and a smile, and Sheena lets Corrine clamber onto her shoulder again as she crosses her arms, leaning against the wall behind her.

“We could… we could run away,” she suggests, not for the first time. It would have to be the three of them, of course—well, four of them, including Corrine—but honestly that isn’t even a question. It’s not like Sheena could be Zelos’ driver. And it’s not like she’d leave Seles behind, even if she could.

“Where would we run to, though?” Zelos counters, helpless even as he smiles at her, like this is all some kind of joke.

Sheena turns her head away, bitterness twisting her lips, because she doesn’t know. She thinks of the other Aegis, of Colette, and wishes Zelos could be as free as she is. A part of Sheena twists with guilt, since she didn’t manage to kill Colette and at least free Zelos from the overhanging threat of being replaced.

(She tried, she really tried, but even besides being outmatched by Colette’s companions… Colette’s gentle smile and light laugh pass through her mind, and Sheena blushes before furiously pushing them out of there.)

“I don’t know,” Sheena admits, defeated.

Seles smiles at her, though, reassuring. “It’s a nice thought, though. Maybe one day, we’ll all be free of this.”

 

\- - -

 

Behind him, Lloyd lets out a yelp and a curse, while Genis laughs. Kratos stops in his tracks, recoiling from the sudden sting across his face. It feels like he just got hit with a tree branch, except there wasn’t a tree.

Kratos looks over his shoulder to Lloyd, sees him recoiling from what looks like with a collision with a tree… branch…

Hmm.

Kratos remembers, distantly, now. The side effects of sharing a core crystal with someone.

Eyes fixed on Lloyd, who is too busy arguing with the still-laughing Genis to notice, Kratos slowly raises his right hand. Before he can feel any kind of trepidation about the act, he swiftly smacks his palm against his bicep, just hard enough to hurt.

Lloyd jumps three feet into the air, his hand flying to clutch the same spot.

“What the _fuck_ was that!?” Lloyd screams, looking somewhat horrified.

Kratos sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose.

He can’t believe he _forgot._

_(“Ow! The hell was that!? Anna’s the one who got punched—”_

_“Oh, sorry. Did I forget to mention?”_

_“Fucking hell, Jin!”_

_“Sorry, Malos.”_ )

Kratos pushes the memories of a purple core crystal shared between driver and blade out of his mind before his grief can boil over completely within him. They’re gone, and there’s nothing he can do about that, and—

 _Stay in the present, Kratos,_ he reminds himself. _You’ve spent much too long in the past._

**\- - -**

 

There’s a knock on Lloyd’s door. Bewildered, he gets up from the table where he and Colette were chatting aimlessly over coffee. His dad is out right now, but it’s not completely unusual for people to show up with orders for things they wanted repaired at any time of day, so Lloyd figures it’s probably just that.

It’s not just that.

Lloyd is very, _very_ surprised to see members of the Sylvaranti military standing at his door.

“Um, can I help you?” he asks.

“We’ve received reports that you’ve awakened the Aegis,” the soldier says, her face dark. The rank on her uniform says she’s a captain.

“I did _what_ ,” Lloyd replies.

“Um,” Colette says.

“There she is, Lady Morag,” says the blade behind the captain.

Lloyd swivels around to look at Colette. She’s gotten to her feet, her coffee knocked over. She sends Lloyd an apologetic smile, but her eyes are wide in panic. This. This isn’t good.

“You, uh, need her for something?” Lloyd says as his eyes dart back towards the captain. He’s trying to stall.

Energy glows in the captain’s hands. Is she about to summon her blade’s weapons? No good!

“You are to hand her over at once!” the captain demands.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Lloyd says, grabbing Colette’s hand and running out the back door. He overturns his dad’s workdesk on the way out to slow them down, which Dirk will surely be upset about but… Lloyd also thinks he’ll understand.

They make it out into the hills behind the house, running for a while, then ducking into a cave. While they wait for the soldiers to pass, Lloyd turns to Colette.

“The _Aegis_?” he hisses, eyes fixed on her core crystal. It’s the right shape, now that he thinks about it.

Colette grins uneasily. “S- Surprise?”

“Why didn’t you tell me!”

“Well…” Colette swallows, looking a little guilty. “It was kind of nice, you know. Just being. Colette.”

“Oh.”

Lloyd thinks he just learned more about her in that moment than he ever knew about her before.

 

\- - -

 

Botta takes a hit meant for Yuan.

“NO!” Yuan shouts, watching the love of his life fall. He rushes forward to catch Botta, eyes searching for the wound. Blood blossoms on Botta’s shirt, soaking it slowly. He’s not dead yet, but… “ _Idiot,_ why did you do that!?” he demands, easing them both onto the ground. The battle continues on around them, a battle against a bunch of Tethe’allan military thugs. “ _I’m_ the one who’s expendable!”

Botta shakes his head. “No you aren’t. Not to me.”

Yuan feels his chest seize. Fondness makes a broken smile crack on his lips. Tears burn in his eyes.

“Idiot,” he says again, his grip on Botta tightening. “But if you die, I die too!” Already he can feel the ether connection between the two of them start to fade, little tears under his skin.

Botta blinks, like he hadn’t considered that. Yuan curses, and looks up to search the field for Martel, because Martel is a healer, and Botta’s not dead _yet._ He sees Colette near Lloyd and Zelos, the both of them pouring their energy into Lloyd, and Lloyd dealing out devastating blows with their dual swords. He won’t be able to get their attention, not in time, he thinks. So Yuan searches for Raine, instead—

Botta’s hand touches his cheek, and Yuan’s eyes immediately fall back to his beloved.

“I’m sorry,” Botta says. He’s smiling, but there’s pain in his eyes. Yuan feels like he’s going to be sick. “I should have thought this through. I just… didn’t want to see you hurt. I didn’t want to lose you.”

“You wouldn’t have lost me forever,” Yuan counters.

“But you would have lost your memories,” is Botta’s response. “I’m sorry,” he repeats. “Martel can transfer driver rights, can’t she? Maybe Kratos can take you, before you die. Even if you just remember me… That will be enough.”

Yuan’s mouth pulls into a snarl, despair beating hard in his chest. “Not for me,” he hisses. “What’s the point, without you?” Now he can see some of the blessing, in forgetting. Now he can understand, why Kratos was so hesitant to find him again. The grief of losing a loved one was like a mountain on his shoulders, a vice grip on his chest. Wouldn’t it be better to forget?

Another ether link snaps between the two of them. Yuan squeezes his eyes shut. He should call for help, but he’s beginning to think this is even beyond Raine’s healing abilities.

“Please, Yuan,” Botta says, cradling Yuan’s face. “Please, live.”

Another ether link snaps. Then another. Yuan can feel his hold on his physical form beginning to waver.

“You’re so _stupid,_ ” he hisses, with all the frustration and love in his chest. He touches his forehead to Botta’s, relishing in the last closeness they’ll get.

Kratos’ hand falls on his shoulder.

“There’s still time to save him,” Kratos says, and Yuan’s attention snaps to him. “Do you trust me, Yuan?”

“Of course I do,” Yuan answers, because that’s not even a question.

“I’ll need part of your core crystal,” Kratos says, carefully.

Yuan straightens enough to rip off his cloak and pull down his shirt so Kratos can access it. “Take it, then!”

“It’s going to hurt,” Kratos warns.

“You think I care?! I can’t _lose_ him!”

Kratos nods.

Yuan braces himself for the worst—though really, there is nothing worse to him than the thought of losing Botta. Kratos was right, though. It does hurt like a bitch. But then he’s Aware of Botta, in ways he wasn’t before. And he can feel the ether link between them restoring, can _feel_ Botta’s heart start beating again. Yuan laughs with relief.

“It’ll take him a moment to come to,” Kratos tells him, gently. “But that should do it.”

Yuan opens his eyes to see Kratos’ handiwork. His core crystal has been sliced cleanly in two, and the other half of it rests in Botta’s chest, now. He feels… weaker, a little bit. But. Botta is alive.

Botta is alive, and so is he.

“Thank you,” Yuan says, grinning up at Kratos.

Kratos smiles, softly, fondly. “Anything for my brother,” he replies, and gets to his feet to give them some space.

Yuan sits with Botta’s head in his lap, running his hands through Botta’s hair as he waits for Botta to wake up again. The sounds of battle around them slow, stop. Yuan watches as Raine starts patching up the rest of the party, watches the cautious glances that are sent his and Botta’s direction, though no one approaches.

“Oh,” Botta says.

A grin breaks on Yuan’s face.

“Hello,” he says, looking down at Botta.

Botta’s eyes fall on Yuan’s core crystal, then he reaches up to feel his own chest. Understanding lights on his face, when he feels the crystal placed there.

“I see,” he whispers.

Yuan grins.

“Hey, Botta,” he says.

“Mm?”

“Will you marry me?”

Botta’s eyebrows raise slowly, but so too does his mouth twitch upwards in a smile.

“You’re asking _now_?”

Yuan laughs. “Well, I did just give you half my heart, didn’t I? I don’t think there could possibly be a better time.”

Botta hums as he thinks about it, but he’s grinning wider and wider with every second. “You know what?” he says. “You’re right.”

He pulls Yuan down for a kiss.

 

\- - -

 

 “Mithos,” Kratos says, in warning.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Kratos, it’s perfectly safe!” Mithos assures him, with a grin too wide and his eyes too full of excitement. He sounds much too eager to do what he’s about to be doing. “The worst thing that can happen is that it’ll kill me, but then you’ll just wake me back up, right?”

Kratos hesitates, but, of course he will. For Mithos? Anything.

“Yes,” he whispers.

He does not say that he’s certain the worst thing that could happen is the thing that _is_ happening. Losing Mithos like he lost Martel. But just as he could not stop Martel from being shattered, he cannot seem to stop Mithos from slipping away from him. He is not selfish enough, not brave enough, to ask Mithos to stay.

“Good,” Mithos says, and he flashes Kratos a confident grin. “Let’s begin the experiment.”

He runs his thumb over his core crystal—sapphire blue, and having recently gained a glowing swirl of his sister’s emerald green—and then gathers the ether around himself to manipulate it. Slowly, methodically, Mithos begins to snap the ether links between himself and Kratos. Kratos flinches with each one, trying not to break under how much it hurts. The steady flow of ether coursing into him being cut off is like agony.

It’s slower, than when Martel had died. All of Martel was pulled away from him at once, then. But Mithos severs their link slowly, cautiously, like he doesn’t want to mess it up, and that makes it a thousand times worse. Seconds seem to stretch on for eternity.

The final ether link snaps.

Kratos gasps for air, eyes searching for Mithos, for the only Aegis he was still bound to. Selfishly, he wishes to see nothing but a crystal.

But Mithos stands there, tall and proud, looking delighted.

“We did it!” He flashes the widest, happiest grin at Kratos. (Happiest since Martel died, anyway.) “Kratos- Kratos, it _worked_!”

“So it did,” Kratos echoes, doing his best to smile in return.

Mithos has succeeded. He’s created a self-sufficient blade, a blade that has no need for a driver, a blade that has no need for a human, whether in whole or in part.

( _Kratos wants to be happy for him, he really does. It’s amazing, incredible, what Mithos has managed. But truthfully, it was the ether flow from the Aegises that was fueling Kratos, and now he doesn’t have that. Now he has nothing, nothing, nothing but his own warped flesh and damaged crystal_.)

 

\- - -

 

 “How long will he be like that?” Colette asks, watching Sheena and Lloyd fuss (mostly jokingly, she thinks) over Zelos’ currently dormant core crystal.

‘ _It could be a while, a day or two,’_ Martel answers from inside her. ‘ _I think it took me three, when I transferred my driver rights to Kratos…’_ She feels distant, her presence kind of fuzzy, like she tends to when sorting through her memories of the past, especially her memories of the war. Colette gets a flash of memory, bleeding through the walls between them—a flash of unending pain, of release, of exhaustion. She thinks Martel knows more than anyone how badly Zelos deserves this time not only to reconfigure, but to recuperate.

(Colette counts herself lucky, being the only Aegis who for some reason wasn’t compatible with the Aegis cannons. Having that much of your power siphoned off from you, and used against your will? It must be terrifying, and the echoes of Martel’s memories in her skull tell her it hurts, hurts like no other—)

Martel gets even more distant, somehow, and Colette hastily stops thinking about it.

“I hope he’ll be okay,” she says, of Zelos, which isn’t really changing the subject at all.

‘ _He should be,’_ Martel assures her, gentle and fond even though she doesn’t feel grounded inside of Colette at all. ‘ _Lloyd will take good care of him, just like his father took care of me._ ’

Colette thinks so too, as she watches Lloyd. Lloyd’s been very good to her, after all, to her and Martel both. Why would it be any different for Zelos?

And more than that, Zelos has freedom, freedom that Colette knows he must have craved.

What Aegis doesn’t crave freedom from the path chosen for them, after all?

Colette looks from Lloyd to Sheena, then to the rest of their party, spread out along their now-very-large camp. She looks to her friends, her family, a smile pulling on her lips. It was not the freedom she expected, when she’d offered herself up to save Martel. It is a freedom much better, much more beautiful than that, and she is grateful tenfold.

She finds her gaze gravitating back to Sheena, once, and then a second time. Colette knows that watching the Sage siblings argue over magic would be much more interesting than watching Sheena do nothing other than hold Zelos’ core crystal, but she can’t help it. When she looks at Sheena, something warm and bubbly sits in her chest, something she doesn’t ever want to let go of—

‘ _She’s cute, isn’t she,’_ Martel says, conversationally. She feels more Here, but her words startle Colette nearly out of her skin.

“H- _hey_!” she stammers, and hastily squashes the feelings down where Martel can’t reach them. Colette’s not stupid, she’s really not. She has a pretty good guess at what these bubbly feelings for Sheena are, and that paired with the fact Martel can feel them perhaps as sharply as Colette can makes Colette’s cheeks burn. She tries to push it out of her mind, though it aches.

Shame comes hot and slick along her link to Martel. ‘ _I’m sorry,_ ’ Martel murmurs, her mental voice sounding as small as she can possibly make it.

Colette swallows, her own despair fighting back against Martel’s shame. This is no one’s fault but her own.

“What for?” she asks, though she doesn’t need to.

They both know that she’s been avoiding Sheena, in reality. Colette doesn’t want to, but it’s too difficult—too _embarrassing_ —to try and navigate her feelings for Sheena while Martel is right there to overhear all of them.

‘ _I didn’t want to steal your life from you,’_ Martel says.

Colette sighs. Makes herself smile. It’s not too difficult.

“It wasn’t much of a life before you,” she admits, fingers reaching up to trace the uneven cracks where their shared core crystals meet. Despite the technically horrid thing it represents, the pattern against her fingertips brings her comfort.

Because, before Martel, she was desperately, painfully alone. She’s selfishly jealous of Zelos, for a flash of a moment, because—because even though they both know the weight of being the world’s artificial Aegises, created to be used but also slated to be replaced in a heartbeat, should either country get their hands on a “real” Aegis—Even despite that, despite sharing that pain and the weight of that knowledge, Zelos…

Zelos had _friends._ Zelos had a driver he actually got along with, and he had Sheena, while Colette?

Colette had no one. Not before Martel.

( _And it was Martel, who had suggested they should run. It was Martel, who got them as far as the fields of Iselia before exhaustion claimed them. Martel was the only reason they’d met Lloyd, and Lloyd was the only reason they’d met everyone else._ )

Shame still boils hot in Martel, but Colette counters it firmly with her own conviction.

“I’m happy you’re here,” she insists. “Even if it’s troublesome, for the both of us, I’m happy I got to meet you. I wouldn’t change that for anything.”

Martel’s presence seems to tremble, and her voice is watery when she answers.

‘ _Thank you, Colette. You’re much, much too kind._ ’

 

\- - -

 

Martel wakes to a voice she has not heard in four hundred years.

“Sis? Hey, sis…”

A gentle, familiar hand shakes her by the shoulder. She stirs immediately at the touch.

“Mithos…?” she whispers, blinking through the sleep in her eyes and the dimness of the night. Neither of the two moons are more than half full, meaning even combined they do not shed much light, the faint blue-green of Mithos’ core crystal illuminates his face from below, and his ether lines are almost like a beacon, and—there’s no mistaking him, really. She’d recognize that silhouette, that gentle grin, anywhere.

It’s her little brother.

“Mithos!” she exclaims, pulling him into a crushing hug.

He laughs, loud and bright and delighted, clinging to her in return.

She tucks his head against her chest, fingers knotting in his hair as she holds onto him. The reality of his presence and weight in her lap leaves her breathless, because she wasn’t sure when she was going to see him again, and it’s been. _So long_. Maybe he squeezes her too tight. Surely, she squeezes him too tightly, too.

“Hi, sis,” Mithos whispers, his voice a little muffled.

Martel laughs—perhaps too loudly, but then, Martel finds it hard to care if she wakes the rest of the camp with her joy. ( _Lloyd is already awake, besides. She can feel his waking consciousness, though she does not know he woke crying tears of joy that weren’t his own_.)

Martel lets go of her brother, though not entirely. She keeps one hand on his shoulder, fusses with pushing his hair out of his face with the other, needing to keep touching him, needing the physical reassurance that he’s here, he’s _here_.

Now that she’s not crushing him in a hug, her eyes are drawn towards his crystal. Sapphire blue is interrupted with swirls of green. It’s gorgeous to look at, but that certainly isn’t the way it used to…

Her eyes are easily pulled back up to his face, a soft smile pulling at her lips as she studies him, her _little brother,_ her _Mithos,_ here and alive in front of her.

“It’s so good to see you again,” Martel says.

“It’s good to see you, too,” Mithos echoes, leaning into her touch. He clasps her wrists tightly, like he doesn’t want to let her go. “I got here as fast as I could, but it’s not really safe to travel, not alone, not when I’m—”

_An Aegis. Wanted. Would be used again if they got their hands on me._

“I know, I know,” Martel cuts him off.

She strokes his face, his hair, even as Mithos shifts a little out of her grasp, turning to scan intelligent eyes over the camp spread out around them. Lloyd and Kratos are in arms-reach of each other on Martel’s left, Yuan and Botta next to each other on Martel’s right. Somewhere behind Mithos is Raine, asleep, and Genis, awake but not far from her, because it was his turn to take the night watch.

“Who… are all these people, sis?” Mithos asks.

“Well, you know Kratos, and Yuan,” Martel says. Kratos is waking up, attention first on Lloyd before he sees Mithos. Martel sends Kratos a small smile before turning Mithos’ attention to Botta. “And that’s Yuan’s driver—” She does not miss, and she frowns, at the way Mithos tenses at the mention of that— “Then there’s Genis, and Raine. They’re Lloyd’s friends. Lloyd is my driver.”

Mithos’ eyes narrow, attention pulling away from Lloyd to look at Martel again.

“Why is he your driver, and not Kratos?”

There’s a cold edge in Mithos’ voice that makes the pulse of Martel’s ether catch. Her hand slowly falls away from his face, concerned as she studies him. She can’t quite place what’s wrong. Cautiously, she gives him the truth:

“Well, he was Colette’s driver, before he was mine,” she explains. “And he’s—”

“He’s _supposed_ to be dead,” Mithos interrupts, a terrible, quiet kind of fury making his voice shake. His eyes are fixed on Lloyd. Something about the way he tenses makes Martel reflexively close a hand around his wrist, even though; it’s silly, isn’t it? Why would he attack Lloyd?

Kratos shifts ever-so-slightly, so that he’s between Lloyd and Mithos. “He’s my _son,_ Mithos,” he says, gentle in his explanation, but clearly worried.

“Your son?” Mithos asks. His face twists into something dark, and Martel can’t recognize him, can’t see her brother in those cold eyes. “You made your peace with his death long ago.”

“He’s not dead, though,” Kratos counters. He sounds more weary than upset, and that makes Martel’s stomach fall out of her body.

“Mithos, how could you say such a thing?” she scolds, horror making her voice pitch upwards.

She feels a spike of panic from Lloyd, she thinks, but maybe that’s just her own panic echoing through him on a feedback loop. Genis slowly makes his way over to wake his sister. Colette roils like a ball of discomfort in the back of Martel’s mind.

“He’s a _human,_ sis,” Mithos counters, turning those cold eyes towards her. Anger darkens his face. “I can’t believe you’re traveling with humans! And- and _you,_ Kratos—!”

“ _Mithos_ ,” Martel says, stern. Kratos warned her, oh, he warned her, that it would be this way. He warned her, that seeing Mithos might not go as well as any of them hoped, and she ignored it, hadn’t let it change her mind, because Mithos is her _brother_ and she wanted to believe the best of him.

Her hand tightens around his wrist, as if she could cling to the boy he used to be, as if she could drag that boy out of the past and place him in the present.

“Don’t you remember what they _did_ to us!?” Mithos demands, swiping the hand she isn’t clutching through the air as he backs a little away from Martel.

Martel’s ether pulses an uncertain rhythm against her core crystal. She does, of course she does. She could never forget the agony of the Aegis cannons, could never forget the pain of knowing her power was being used to hurt her brother, could never forget dying by humanity’s hands or what they’ve done to Colette, but—

“Yes, but, _Mithos_ ,” she says.

Mithos gets to his feet, the strength of his anger and the weakness of Martel’s uncertainty easily letting him free himself from her grasp. “Humanity should _burn_!” he yells, loud enough to wake everyone else in camp, if they weren’t already awake. “We should wipe them off the face of this planet, just like they wanted—to eradicate each other! To eradicate themselves!”

This, at least, is a familiar anger, but it’s still terrible to watch how it twists his face. It’s difficult, Martel finds, to breathe.

“I understand the sentiment,” comes Raine’s voice, distant. “But if you destroy humans, then who do you expect to drive the blades? We _need_ humans.”

Mithos grins, a manic glint in his eyes.

“No, we don’t,” he says, his voice quiet, ecstatic. “That’s what I’ve been working on to solve. A way to create a self-sufficient blade. I’ve only managed to- for myself, and I haven’t quite been able to get it to work for anyone else…” ( _There were many attempts, many near-successes, but none that were able to hold themselves together longer than a year. The power of one Aegis alone seems to not be enough, but…_ ) Mithos turns to his sister, eagerness softening his voice. “But with your help, sis, I think we might be able to really get somewhere. If both Aegises work at it—”

It’s difficult to find the words to argue with him, all Martel knows is that she has to, somehow, she has to. Her knees and her toes where they come in contact with the ground feel tingly and discordant, garbage signals getting sent to her brain instead of the actual sensation of grass.

“I, I suppose, self-sufficient blades aren’t a _bad_ thing,” Martel says. To her own ears, her voice sounds like a garbage signal as well. “But Mithos, we can’t- we can’t just _kill_ humanity.”

Mithos’ eyes flash.

“And why not!?” he demands.

“Because—” Martel tries, but he doesn’t let her.

“All humans do is use us blades to fight their battles, their wars, so they don’t have to get their own hands dirty,” Mithos argues, voice burning with a righteous anger. “We’re pushed to our limits until we perish along with the one who awakened us—or before that, if they’re selfish enough to use us as their shields! Over and over and over again, blades are trapped in this cycle of death and rebirth only for humanity’s gain. We’re nothing more than their _tools_.”

“That’s not true,” Martel whispers, or she thinks she does. Reality seems to sit just inches out of her grasp. More garbage signals are sent to her brain as she presses her hands against the ground.

Yuan steps forward, his hair like a banner, conviction sitting deep in his throat as he speaks. “Just because some humans are bad doesn’t mean none of them are good.”

Mithos turns to Yuan with the smile of a boy who knows he’s winning an argument. “And how do you know that, Yuan?” he asks. “You don’t even _remember_.”

“I don’t have to remember to know that there are good humans in this world,” Yuan replies, resolute. His eyes flicker towards Botta, face softening a fraction as he looks at his beloved. Mithos sees this, and he laughs.

“Is that the lies he has you believing? Trust a human to brainwash a blade.” Mithos sends a sharp look at Botta, scoffing and rolling his eyes.

All of Yuan’s softness turns to anger. “Don’t you _dare_ ,” he spits, taking another step forward.

Botta catches him by the hand, gently tugging him back. “Yuan,” he says, a soft warning, a silent suggestion that violence maybe isn’t the solution to this problem.

Mithos’ laughter becomes louder, sharper. “Got you on a tight leash, does he, Yuan?” he calls.

“SHUT THE HELL UP!”

Mithos grins, vindicated. He looks like he wants to say more—( _that, at least, is familiar. Mithos always had a fondness for pushing people’s—especially Yuan’s—buttons just to watch them snap_ )—but Kratos calls softly out to him.

“Mithos,” Kratos says.

“What?” Mithos asks, turning to his old driver, his oldest friend, challenging Kratos to argue.

Kratos hesitates, then finds he is not brave enough to.

Seeing this, Mithos just smiles wider. “That’s what I thought,” he says, smug. He turns back to his sister, dropping to his knees and grabbing her hands, an eager glint in his eyes. “Sis, listen to me,” he says. “I can make it so you don’t need a driver, anymore. Then the two of us can make lives better for bladekind, and we can make humanity pay for its crimes.”

It hurts, to see him smile at her like that. It hurts, because that’s the smile of a boy who trusts his sister to do anything for him, but—

She can’t. She _can’t_.

“Mithos,” Martel tries, but it’s difficult to make her tongue move. Even the sensation of Mithos gripping her hands is more garbage signals to her brain. They crash against the anxiety in her chest and crescendo to a whine in her mind that’s difficult to think through. Since her mouth won’t work, Martel just shakes her head.

Doing so makes her core feel like it’s shattering all over again, but even that doesn’t hurt as much as the anger Mithos regards her with the moment she tells him no.

“You don’t want to save bladekind?” he demands.

“That’s not—” Martel tries, and barely manages to get out. Frustration makes her sick, as she desperately clings to sensation of reality as its ripped from her. ( _She’s going to have to fight Mithos again, isn’t she? They’re going to be on opposite sides of a war. She’s going to have to hurt him, even though, even though—_ ) “Didn’t we promise?” she pleads. “Didn’t we promise, we aren’t tools of destruction—”

Mithos answers her with a smile.

“Of course we are, sis,” he whispers, gentle. “We are tools of destruction and creation. That’s what being an Aegis is _about_.” He squeezes her hands. She barely feels it. “We can make a new world. Together.”

Martel can’t move, can’t make him drop her hands, so all she does is shake her head.

“No, Mithos,” she says.

“Excuse me?”

The pain in his eyes is unbearable, but Martel persists.

“I can’t,” she says. “I _won’t_.”

Something in Mithos snaps. Martel watches it happen.

“How could you _say that_!?” he demands, voice catching on the words. “Come on, you’re my _sister,_ we’re supposed to- we’re supposed to _follow_ each other, to the ends of the universe—”

“You’re going somewhere I can’t follow!” Martel argues, tears burning hot in her eyes. “I _refuse_ to become a weapon of destruction, Mithos!”

Not again. Never again.

(What hurts, most of all, is that her _brother_ expected to use her as such.)

Mithos’ eyes grow cold. He drops his sister’s hands and gets to his feet, pulling himself to his full height as he looks down on her. When he speaks, his voice is like ice.

“If you won’t help me, Martel,” he threatens. “Then you’re in my way.”

Something in Martel snaps, too.

With a shuddering gasp of air and a cry of agony, Martel retreats in on herself, and Colette is thrown to the front.

“Martel?” Colette whispers, concern filling her to the brim as the reality of what just happened catches up to her. She reaches for Martel, but it’s like Martel is on the other side of a chasm. “ _Martel!_ ” Colette calls, more urgent. She’s never felt this separated from Martel before, and it scares her.

Mithos’ eyes go wide.

“What did you do to her!?” he demands, leaning towards Colette.

Colette pushes him away and stumbles back, arms crossed defensively over her chest. “What did I do?” she asks. “What did _you_ do!!”

Mithos scowls for a moment, but then something seems to click in his mind. His mouth twitches. A broken kind of laugh leaves his lips. “I see,” he says. “So that’s it. When they merged her with the bastard Aegis…” His smile becomes sharp. “It’s _your_ fault, then!” he sneers, at Colette. “ _You’re_ the reason she’s not agreeing with me!”

“What? That doesn’t even—”

Mithos steps towards Colette, a clear threat in his posture. Lloyd, who’s finding it much easier to think now that Colette is fronting and Martel is not, runs forward, sliding in between Mithos and his blade before Mithos can get any closer to her.

“I think you’ve done enough,” Lloyd says.

Mithos sees Lloyd and his eyes flash with anger. “That, or it’s you, isn’t it?” he hisses, voice sharp. “It’s her putrid human driver— _you’re_ what’s holding her back!”

“That’s not—” Lloyd protests.

“He isn’t—” Colette tries.

“Don’t worry, sis,” Mithos says, his voice becoming gentle, loving, despite the fury in his eyes. “I’ll free you.” He raises his hand and summons his sword—like Colette’s and Martel’s, it is white, but his has a bar of blue light in the center, like he’s holding a chunk of the daytime sky in his hands. He raises it above his head, ether swelling around him—

Lloyd puts up his hands as Colette’s sword comes to him, raised to block the blow—

Kratos jumps in front of Lloyd.

Mithos’ sword cuts into him, instead.

“No!” Colette screams.

Kratos does not scream, but he does fall to his knees, Mithos’ sword still in his shoulder.

Lloyd _does_ scream, in agony and in anger, dropping to his knees, too.

“ _Dad!_ ” he hisses, through the fire of pain that burns in his skin and in his mind. “Why did you _do that_ , I could have blocked him!”

“Could you have?” Kratos counters in a quiet whisper. He knows, better than anyone, the destruction Mithos is capable of, the terrible power that Mithos wields, as well as the desire in Mithos to use it. He has seen blades shatter under Mithos’ sword. He has helped Mithos do it.

“I—” Lloyd protests.

“It is fine,” Kratos assures him, closing his hand over Mithos’ hand on the hilt, pushing the sword up and out of his flesh. “His sword did not cut that deep.”

They may not be driver and blade anymore, and maybe they aren’t even friends, but at one point they were like brothers, and Kratos trusted that to slow Mithos, just enough—to slow him where it would not have slowed him against Lloyd.

“So that’s how it is, Kratos,” Mithos whispers, voice filled with a sharp, quiet fury. His eyes dart between Kratos and Lloyd, between the new shape of Kratos’ core crystal and the faint red glow that emits from beneath Lloyd’s shirt. “You’ve abandoned me, haven’t you?”

Kratos’ hand tightens around Mithos’, the breath catching in his lungs.

“Mithos,” he says, trying to come up with the words to answer.

“No, no, I understand,” Mithos’ voice is… bitter. Sad. The sword vanishes from his hands. He yanks his fingers out of Kratos’ grasp with ease. “After all, why would you still follow me? You’ve given your heart to someone else.” He takes a step back, despair pulling his mouth downward. “Of course you have. You and sis—you both love humans too much. Forgive them for too much. I don’t know why I expected anything different.”

His eyes dart around to judge the scene, because the moment he drew his sword the rest of camp prepared themselves to fight him. Mithos, though he is many things, has never been stupid. He knows when he is outmatched.

“I will bring blades the freedom they deserve, one way or another,” Mithos declares. “I don’t need your help to do it.”

A blinding light fills the area. When the light has cleared, Mithos is gone.


	2. Chapter 2

The four of them stand at the edge of a perfectly circular crater of black glass. Mithos, Martel, Kratos, and Yuan.

Mithos sinks to his knees. Kratos nearly chokes on the sensation of horror and despair that’s passed into him twofold, but he’s gotten better at this—and this is not the worst he has felt the Aegis siblings despair—so he keeps his head up above the waves this time. The sensation of his stomach dropping out of his body persists, though.

“Did _I_ … do this…?” Mithos whispers. He reaches out a hesitant hand to touch the glass.

Neither of the Aegises has seen much of the outside world before, and they _definitely_ haven’t seen the scars of their destruction—of the humans’ war—up close like this. Yuan doesn’t really remember, but Kratos does.

Kratos does, very well.

“Oh, _Architect,_ ” Mithos chokes, drawing his hand back and clutching both arms around his stomach, falling forward and curling in on himself. The disgust and hatred that boil in him sit thickly in the back of Kratos’ throat.

Martel, too, seems to be stuck frozen in a quieter kind of horror. She stares wide-eyed, hands over her mouth.

Kratos breathes. Keeps his head up. Does not let himself be swept away by the currents.

Gently, so as not to startle the boy, he kneels down beside Mithos and places a hand on the boy’s back, hoping the touch to be soothing.

“The sword is not to blame for the hands that wield it,” Kratos whispers, gently. He fills himself up with as much conviction as he can muster, hoping the blades tied to him can feel it and will be reassured by it. “Your power was weaponized, used without your consent—that is not your fault.”

Mithos lets out a choked gasp of air, somewhere between a sob and something else. Kratos can feel Martel crying, but he cannot move to comfort her as well. All he can do is remain resolute in his convictions, and send gentleness to the both of them along their shared link.

“Kratos is right,” Yuan says, after a moment. “They can call this the Aegis war all they want, but the _humans_ did this, not you.”

Anger crystallizes within Mithos so suddenly and so sharply Kratos nearly loses his balance and slips under the current of emotion that runs through him. He manages to hang on, but only barely.

“Humans… really are awful, aren’t they?” Mithos whispers, cold.

 

\- - -

 

 “Zelos, no!” Seles pleads, even with a knife to her neck.

He sends her the softest smile he can muster, though it is twisted by bitterness.

“It’s not like I really have a choice,” he tells her. “I can’t just let them kill you.” He steps into the cannon, willingly, letting hands grab him and hook wires into his skin. Zelos closes his eyes against the jolt of pain when they connect to his core crystal, closes his eyes to the sound of Seles screaming in protest.

“Besides,” Zelos whispers, more to himself than anyone else. “This is the whole reason I was created, isn’t it?” He sends a smile up to the ceiling as they close the lid of the pod on him. “It’s what they _need_ me for.”

 

\- - -

 

 “I can get you in,” Sheena promises, as they size up the facility that houses the Aegis cannon, the facility where they’re keeping Zelos.

“I suppose they would have upgraded security in the past four hundred years,” Kratos muses.

“You _sure_ you don’t mind getting our help?” Genis asks, with a suspicious raise of his eyebrows.

Sheena stammers something unintelligible, her cheeks turning pink. “Look!” she manages, finally. “I know we all got off on a bad start, but— _I_ can’t save Zelos alone. And _this guy_ ,” she jabs her thumb at Kratos, “has a track record for freeing not just one, but _two_ Aegises from these things.”

More than that, if she can trust anyone with Zelos, it’s this group. They’ve spent months on the run, keeping Colette safe from the Sylvaranti and Tethe’allan governments both, and if they can manage that—well, then they can keep Zelos safe, too.

( _When Kratos had shown up to Sylvarant’s facility, four hundred years ago, it had just been him and what many would have called a death wish. But he was tired of the war, and he didn’t think what they were doing to the Aegises was right. He figured if he died in the effort, well. At least he would die trying to do something good._ )

“Are you alright?” Kratos asks Colette, when they are deeper inside. He worries less for her, and more for Martel. It is with terrible guilt that he drags his old friend back to the place that caused her so much pain—well, Martel was housed in the Sylvaranti facility, but in truth the facilities do not look much different from each other—but it was safer for her to be with the seven of them than on her own.

Colette nods, sending him a soft smile. “I’m fine,” she tells him. “Martel is too. She can… choose not to see through my eyes. I think that’s what she’s doing now.”

“Good,” Kratos says, breathing a sigh of relief.

“This place gives me the creeps, though,” Lloyd mumbles. Perhaps he is feeling some of Martel’s unease. Unlike Colette, he has a much harder time hiding these things.

“It’s a good thing we’re more than enough to deal with their guards then, isn’t it?” Botta laughs. “We won’t be here long.”

( _It’d been a much more difficult task, taking on every single guard in the facility on his own. But Kratos was good at violence, even if he wasn’t fond of it. He had his mission, and no reason to turn back, and so he pressed forward. Maybe it had been luck, or maybe it had been fate, but eventually—even if beaten and bruised and on the last of his ether—he reached the control room for the Aegis cannon, where they were keeping—still using—Martel._ )

“Here,” Sheena says, pausing by the door. “Unless they’ve moved him.”

“Unlikely,” Kratos says.

“Has he been… hooked up this whole time?” Lloyd asks, a clear discomfort at the notion in his voice.

“Probably,” Colette whispers. She wouldn’t know, but Martel does, and even if Martel is very, _very_ distant from her right now, memories-that-are-not-hers and feelings-that-are-not-hers slip through the cracks where she ends and Martel begins. “They can only use him to fuel a few shots per day, but… It’s easier to leave him in there. He’ll be less willing to go back in a second time.”

( _Rough hands grabbing her even as she screams no no no I don’t want to, you can’t make me, but they can make her there’s too many of them to resist and she’s too weakened from constant use and—_ )

Sheena looks a little sick at the notion. So does Lloyd. Kratos, unsurprised, but worried. Colette ducks her head down and tries not to think of the near-panic that grips her stomach, hand rising immediately to trace the scars on her core crystal to comfort herself. It’ll be fine. No one here is going to let her get shoved into that thing. They’re here to save Zelos.

( _Martel, standing outside the cannon where they were holding Mithos, had to remind herself of the same things, four hundred years ago._ )

“Let’s not leave him in there any longer,” Sheena says, moving towards the door. Kratos stops her.

“You are without your blade. I’ll go first.”

He kicks the door open.

It’s a rush of battle and surprised shouts, but it’s over soon enough.

( _Through the pain, Martel registered the sound of a door slamming people screaming oh shit who the hell is that who let him in here don’t let him get the—_ )

Sheena rushes over to the computer console, hastily trying to determine the off switch. Colette joins her, because she’d much rather be looking at anything other than the cannon. Not that the cannon itself is in here, just a pod Zelos is enclosed in and strapped down inside of. Wires and pipes leave the pod and trail into the ceiling, feeding into the actual cannon, which sits on the roof of the facility.

Colette steals a glance at Zelos, out of curiosity. There’s a window in the pod she can see him through. His eyes are closed, face scrunched up in pain. It almost looks like he’s having a bad dream, but Colette knows he’s not sleeping.

“Shit!” Sheena curses. “Don’t know how the hell to turn this thing off.”

“Honestly?” Kratos says, approaching the pod. “It doesn’t matter.”

( _He was too exhausted and in too much of a hurry—they would send reinforcements any second and he couldn’t waste any time when he had gotten this far, too far to let himself be killed, to fail—to try and figure out the console, so Kratos went straight to the pod. It wasn’t the safest or even the smartest thing, no, but Martel had not suffered, so it was fine._ )

“Hey—!” Sheena protests, but Kratos has already taken his sword to the pod. With a hiss of released pressure, the lid opens. Lloyd rushes to it, yanking wires out of Zelos as his father continues to destroy the pod, perhaps with more gusto than necessary.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Zelos moans, softly, as Lloyd pulls him out of the pod and then has to immediately ease him onto the ground, since Zelos doesn’t have the strength in him to stand. “We done already, chief? Hey, hang on…”

“It’s alright,” Lloyd tells him. “We’re here to rescue you.”

( _It was a relief, to be released, but Martel was no less fearful of the man who pulled her out of the cannon. His face was too hard, even though he tried to make it soft for her._

_“Who are you?” she demanded, fear in her throat. “What do you want with me?”_

_“It’s alright,” Kratos told her, letting go of her to raise his hands in a gesture of peace. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to rescue you.”_ )

Zelos squints at the boy holding him, not sure if he likes this, but too tired to move. “Rescue…?” he repeats, numbly. “The hell…” But then he sees Sheena, running towards him, and he understands.

“I couldn’t just let them do this to you!” Sheena tells him, and Zelos laughs, soft and relieved. The laughter becomes a sharp exhale of pain, as she pulls him into a tight hug. He’s sore all over, but he doesn’t tell her to let go. “I just- my own power wasn’t going to be enough to save you. I needed help.”

There’s a weight in Sheena’s voice, a guilt, that Zelos wants to dispel, because she always puts too much on her shoulders, and she shouldn’t blame herself when she can’t bear it. But his mind is still buzzing and throbbing, a dull constant ache in his skull, behind his eyes. It makes it hard to think, and—they aren’t alone, anyway. He’s not going to get sincere in front of a bunch of people he just met.

He looks them over. It’s easy to recognize them.

“It’s you guys…” Zelos whispers, leaning on Sheena, who gladly supports his weight. He squints at Sylvarant’s Aegis, at the boy and the man with her. Wasn’t her group larger? And, more importantly; “Why would you agree to help Sheena? To help _me_?”

There’s a genuine, bright concern in the boy’s eyes, so intense Zelos has to shy away from it.

“Because it’s wrong, for them to be using you like this,” the boy says.

For a moment, Zelos’ ether stops pulsing.

( _“Rescue…?” Martel repeats, dimly. The word, the idea, registers well enough to her ears, but it’s hard to comprehend that it’s happening, and more than that; “Why?” she demands. “Why would you want to rescue me?”_

_Kratos’ face does not soften, but conviction burns so strongly in his eyes that Martel is left breathless._

_“Because it’s wrong for them to be using you like this.”_ )

It’s a nice thought, the rescue, the freedom. Zelos can’t say he doesn’t want it—of course he does. Of _course_ he does—it’s just, he didn’t think it was ever a thing he could have.

The release from the constant pain he’s been feeling for the past three days is intoxicating, though. And the thought of a future, away from all this? Honestly, he can’t wrap his mind around it.

Freedom is foreign to him. How can he have freedom, when—

He stops breathing.

“Seles,” he whispers, eyes wide as the realization hits him. “We have to save Seles.”

( _“Come on, let’s get you out of here.”_

 _“Wait! Mithos! We have to- you have to save him, too!”_ )

“Yuan and the others are taking care of her as we speak,” Kratos assures Zelos. “Sheena explained the situation to us.”

“I sent Corrine with them, so she knows it’s safe,” Sheena adds. She gets to her feet, hoisting Zelos up with her. She looks unsteady under his weight, but the look she sends Lloyd makes it clear she doesn’t want help. “Come on, we’re gonna meet her outside.”

“Guess we’re really running away, huh?” Zelos whispers, dragging his feet after Sheena. “Where are we gonna go?”

“I don’t know.” Sheena’s smile is wide enough to split the world in two. “But does that really matter, so long as we’re free?”

( _It doesn’t._ )

 

\- - -

 

 “Maybe… Mithos is right, though,” Genis whispers into the night, not long after Mithos has left. He knows Raine can hear him. Everyone else is distracted—Colette and Lloyd and Kratos trying to calm Martel, Yuan and Botta definitely not paying attention to anything other than each other—so he doesn’t have to worry about starting another argument.

He can’t see Raine, because his back is to the camp and the faint flicker of sunrise on the distant horizon. He can feel her disapproving glare drill into the back of his head, though.

“About what?” she asks, tone carefully neutral.

Genis laughs, short and bitter.

“About… humans,” he answers. “They really are awful, aren’t they?”

“Mm.”

Raine doesn’t agree, but she doesn’t disagree, either.

( _She knows as well as he does, though. The horrors their last set of drivers put them through. The fear of losing each other to the system that manages blades and handed to new drivers well, well away from each other compelling them to become what they are now._ )

“I think he’s right about blades, too,” Genis adds. “Being self-sufficient… without a need for a driver… wouldn’t that be nice?”

(Genis can’t get the glint in Mithos’ eyes out of his head, can’t stop thinking about the breathless catch of Mithos’ whisper as he lined out his ideal world for bladekind. He’s only seen that kind of relentless passion in Lloyd, but Mithos’… Mithos’ was different, somehow. Less like a declaration, more like a promise. It makes him shiver just to think about.)

Raine comes and sits down next to him, pressing her side against his, like she needs to be reassured of his presence. He thinks it’s kind of silly, but indulges her anyway, leaning into her in return.

“We already don’t need drivers, Genis,” Raine scolds. Her tone is distant, though, and she doesn’t look at him.

“Yeah, and at what cost?” Genis counters.

Raine doesn’t reply. She knows. She knows the toll being a flesh eater has taken on him, she knows the price that came with their freedom. (With _his_ freedom, specifically.)

Genis leans back on his hands, feeling a little smug.

Raine sighs.

“That still doesn’t excuse any of Mithos’ actions,” she says.

“Well, no,” Genis agrees, because his sister expects him to, and maybe she’s right about that at least. “But he still has a point.”

 

\- - -

 

Colette and Lloyd have been on the run for only a day since Sylvarant’s army knocked on Lloyd’s door looking for their lost Aegis. They cannot set foot in towns or they’ll immediately be arrested. They have to camp in the wilderness, away from civilization. Right now they sit near the fire they have made for the night, Colette leaned against Lloyd’s side and his arm around her shoulders because she soaks up physical displays of affection like a sponge.

The emotion bleed is tight, and anxious. Lloyd knows something’s up before Colette even speaks.

“It’s… I could just go back, you know,” Colette whispers, head down. “Maybe I should. I mean- I can’t. I can’t really ask you to. To…”

She doesn’t finish, but if she thinks she’s going to talk him out of this, she can think again. Lloyd tightens his grip on her.

“I’m not going to let them hurt you, Colette,” he insists.

“They never hurt me.”

She says it so certainly he doesn’t think she’s lying. Or at least, she doesn’t think she’s lying. But… people can hurt you in a lot of ways, and a lot of those ways aren’t physical.

( _He thinks of how starved she is for his touch. The way she cries when something nice happens to her. How she never does anything unless he says it’s okay._ )

“Colette…” he begins, though he’s not sure what he’s going to say.

“You can hand me over to them, really,” she whispers. “It’s- it’s alright. They’ll never leave you alone, if you’re with me, and I don’t want them hurting you—”

“I’m not letting them take you,” Lloyd says, with all the conviction he can muster. She hasn’t spoken about her past, and he’s not sure she ever will, but he doesn’t need her to. He hears about the Aegises enough, and the war, and the cannons. He knows all the military wants her for is to use her. And he knows they hurt her. Somehow. He knows that she hates it with them. He knows that she’s scared. That’s enough. That’s more than enough.

“…why?” Colette mumbles, like she doesn’t understand.

Lloyd thinks it over for a moment. Kisses the top of her head in the meantime.

“Because… you deserve to be Just Colette, if you want to be,” he tells her.

It’s a while before she stops crying.

 

\- - -

 

 “Are you sure about this?” Kratos asks again, just to be certain.

“Really, Yuan, I thought you cared more for your safety!” Mithos calls, bright and delighted from behind Kratos. “Going up against _both_ Aegises? You got a death wish?”

Yuan grins at them.

“Of course I don’t!” he laughs. “Someone’s just gotta help you guys learn the ropes though, right? Kratos still isn’t used to your power.”

Kratos grimaces, though Yuan is right. Adjusting to the addition of Mithos’ power has been difficult. A part of him wonders if anyone was really meant to wield both Aegises at once, but then he remembers the sense of completion, of joy, he felt when they two of them were connected through him. They are part of a set. He just has to learn how to support them.

He takes a moment. He breathes.

“Alright,” he says, and he holds out his hands.

Martel’s sword comes first, to his right. It’s warm and familiar, the ether link with it a familiar ground that he knows how to navigate. Mithos’ sword comes a second later to his left hand. Kratos takes another, more careful, breath to fight against the weight of it. This ether link is hot and snappy and he’s still not sure if he’s meant to reign it in or just run with it. He tries to run with it, this time.

“You first,” Yuan tells him.

“You can do it, Kratos!” Martel calls, encouragingly.

Kratos takes another breath to gather himself, to find his footing in the river of ether coursing through him. It’s so strong he feels like he’ll be carried away in it, overwhelmed, but—he has to weather through it. For them.

Letting the storm fill him, guide him, he runs at Yuan.

It’s a little off-kilter, with two swords instead of just one. He tries to think of them as two halves of one whole, instead of as two separate blades. Thinking about it like that makes it a little easier, though he still has to navigate the flurry of ether inside him. Yuan side-steps away from his blow, and then away from the second. He spins his double-bladed spear around and whacks Kratos with the blunt end.

Kratos grunts. Martel’s powers—healing—flow immediately through his veins even though the blow wasn’t that bad.

“Come on, don’t hold back!” Yuan calls.

“What’s the point if you can’t handle our strength?” Mithos adds, his smile a little too sharp.

“Mithos,” Martel scolds. “Give him some time.”

Kratos breathes. Finds his footing.

Two halves of one whole. The ether is strong, but it’s nothing he can’t handle, or it would have already killed him. He runs at Yuan again.

The swing is smoother, though Yuan still dodges with precision and ease. Yuan throws a blast of lightning at him. Kratos catches it with Mithos’ sword, then he _feels_ what he is meant to do next. Channel Yuan’s energy on this sword, like a conduit. Let it grow. Send it back, amplified by Mithos’ own destructive strength and elemental power.

When he swings Mithos’ sword down in an arc at Yuan and the electricity erupts from it in a crack of thunder, Mithos laughs, delighted. It pushes Kratos on. Fills him with strength, with determination.

He may not know how to handle Mithos’ power, yet, but he owes it to Mithos to learn. That is what a driver should do for any blade.

 

\- - -

 

After three days of dormancy, Zelos wakes up, having finished transferring his driver’s rights from Seles to Lloyd.

“Oh,” Lloyd says, the moment he awakes.

“Oh,” Colette echoes, having felt it too.

“What?” Zelos asks, looking nervously between the two of them.

“This feels… more… right?” Lloyd says, fumbling for the words. “Like I’m more- like _we’re_ more—”

“Complete,” Colette finishes.

Lloyd looks at her a second, and then nods. “Yeah. Yeah! That’s it.”

Zelos squints, no less confused, but then what he’s feeling starts to dawn on him. The lack of a constant ache in his chest. Like ether is flowing properly through his veins. Like a circuit in him is completed, like electricity is flowing across it in the proper amount, with the proper tug, with the—

He blinks. Looks at Colette.

“Oh,” he says.

She smiles, nervous, but fond. “Yeah,” she answers. “Martel and Mithos were… part of a set. I think you and me are, too.”

“Holy shit,” Zelos whispers, but he knows without a doubt that she’s right.

( _For the entirety of Colette’s life, there has been a pull in her chest._

_For the entirety of Zelos’, he’s felt it too._

_The sensation was such a constant, so commonplace for the two of them, that they’d both forgotten all about it._

_Until they stood in this moment and realized it was gone._ )

 

\- - -

 

 “Yuan,” Botta says.

“I’m fine,” Yuan tells him, still pacing.

Botta rolls his eyes and grabs Yuan by the hand as soon as he’s close enough, tugging on him until he relents and sits down with Botta. Botta was already well aware that Yuan Wasn’t Fine, because their emotional link made that very clear—if his constant pacing and Botta’s general knowledge of how Yuan worked hadn’t—but he can see it now, in Yuan’s eyes. The way he doesn’t quite relax when Botta reaches up to cup his cheek in his hand.

“You have every right to be upset,” Botta says, with a little laugh. “Martel’s brother or not, that kid was a little shit.”

“I just- I can’t believe he _said that_ ,” Yuan hisses, despair and anger both written in the furrow of his brow.

( _“Trust a human to brainwash a blade!”_ —sharp, terrible words that still ring in Botta’s ears. The idea that a driver ever could fills his mouth with bile.)

“I would never,” Botta whispers.

Yuan actually meets his eyes when he says that, a desperate fondness filling them.

“I know you wouldn’t,” Yuan assures him. He turns his head and presses a kiss to the palm of Botta’s hand.

(Botta isn’t thinking about it right now, but Yuan remembers with perfect clarity the day Botta pulled him aside and told him he was free to go, if he ever wanted to. He remembers how he laughed in response because why would he want to go? Remembers how Botta held his hands and told him _“It’s just- It’s important to me, that you know you_ can _. Our relationship means nothing if we aren’t both allowed to walk away from it._ ”)

“He’s just… so _wrong_ about you,” Yuan mumbles, eyes squeezed shut, his voice filled with quiet conviction. Botta laughs, hopelessly fond, because the fact that Yuan is offended on _his_ behalf is entirely predictable and still fills him with an endless warmth.

“He’s not wrong about all humanity,” Botta counters. “You and I both know that not everyone is as kind to blades.”

“No, but, I’ll tell you the same that I told him. Just because most humans are bad doesn’t mean none of them are good.” He turns to Botta, eyes flashing. “You’re proof of that!”

Botta smiles, runs his fingers absently through Yuan’s hair.

“Maybe we can make him see that,” he says. Then he shrugs. “And, if not… then I’m sure you’ll at least get the chance to punch him in the face.”

Yuan laughs, sounding— _feeling_ —at ease for the first time in the past twenty minutes.

“Oh, Architect, I hope so.”

 

\- - -

 

Kratos does not hear her scream.

Martel does not have the chance to scream.

But Kratos feels the ether link that connects himself to her snap. The river of ether from her into him cuts off abruptly, the source having dried up. Kratos staggers under the lack of its weight.

“No,” he whispers. “ _No_.”

“NOOO!!!” Mithos screams, somewhere distant. Kratos’ head instantly snaps up to find him. Did Mithos watch it, or did he just feel it? Kratos prays he just felt it.

The horror slowly catches up to him—to them. Martel is gone. That means Yuan is, too.

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER!?” Mithos roars, and Kratos’ vision blurs with the strength of Mithos’ pain. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY SISTER!?”

Kratos feels the power gather before Mithos releases it. A terrible explosion of light and fire all around them, an explosion that makes Kratos’ skin burn even though he was not the intended target. He tries to breathe. Tries to anchor himself in Mithos’ sea of grief. It is difficult, when his only driftwood is tainted with that same grief.

Kratos does not even realize that he has drawn his sword.

There is blood everywhere. There is light everywhere. The air burns, oxidized with Mithos’ ether. Kratos fights as well. Calls down a lesser echo of Mithos’ terrible light to obliterate all that stands before him. The Sylvaranti militia that ambushed them falls one by one by mutilated one.

Kratos cannot help it. Kratos cannot stop. He knows he should find Martel’s core crystal, find her and reawaken her or at least keep her safe—her and Yuan, he owes them both that—but he is choking, choking on Mithos’ rage, choking until it has no choice but to bleed out of him.

So Kratos swings his sword. Kratos sets the world alight.

When all they find of Martel is broken shards of her core crystal, Kratos drowns.

 

\- - -

 

They don’t talk much about it, but, truthfully, it is a difficult thing to talk about.

Genis is aging.

Slower than most humans would, which is a small blessing, but age still creeps up on him nonetheless. Raine has watched her little brother grow from 10 to 14. A part of her marvels that this is what it must be like to be a human, with siblings. The rest of her is too overcome with guilt to marvel at it for long.

It seems some blades… react worse to becoming flesh eaters, than others.

Raine is fine. She has no pain like Genis does, she does not need constant healing and rest like he does, she doesn’t age. Apparently her genes were perfectly compatible. (She wonders if it’s because they took from _her_ driver and not Genis’, and if that has anything to do with it, but there’s no way to tell and not really an ethical way to gather research and honestly there are more important things to worry about.)

“I wish you’d stop getting taller,” Raine says, playfully, as she lets Genis go from a hug. She has to stand on her toes to get her chin on top of his head, now, and she can’t say she likes it.

“Hey, let me have this,” Genis counters, his smile sharp and eyes glinting. “It’s the only good part of being a flesh eater.”

He’s joking, but the words still squeeze Raine’s heart in her chest. ( _It’s her fault he’s like this it’s her fault he’s suffering the least she could have done was get the unlucky genes as well_ —)

But instead of saying that, because that’s not fair to Genis, Raine smiles and says: “I dread the day you outgrow me.”

And they move on.

 

\- - -

 

Getting his arm twisted behind his back and a knife pressed to his throat is _not_ the way Kratos expected to be greeted when he stepped foot into this town. There's a second where he cannot think cannot breathe until he very firmly reminds himself that as horrible as the sensation of fingers around his wrist and the fact that he cannot move is, the worst his assailant can do to him is kill him. The sky is above him. Those who hurt him are dead. That knife is pressing too deep into his skin to make elbowing his assailant or blasting them with ether a smart move. If he startles them, they will slit his throat whether they mean to or not. And, he would rather not die here in the middle of nowhere, so…

“Forgive me,” Kratos says, as evenly as he can around the clutch in his chest. Hopefully, he can talk his way out of this. “I did not mean to intrude.”

“What are you doing here?” his assailant asks. A woman’s voice. “How did you find out about this place?”

“I was just passing through. I did not realize there was a town here until it was in sight,” Kratos answers, which is mostly the truth. Also, _town_ might be a little generous, he realizes. The buildings look to be have constructed recently—and without much finesse—and there certainly aren’t more than twenty or so, total. It must be a very small population living here.

“Well you can do us a favor by _getting out_ ,” the woman tells him. With his arm pinned where it is, she has no trouble maneuvering him until he’s turned back around, facing the open plain instead of the village.

“Please,” Kratos argues. “It has been a long journey, and I would like a place to rest tonight. I have gald.” The desire for a bed is less important to him than curiosity to discover more about this village. It’s stationed in the borderlands between the two countries—an interesting spot—and Kratos couldn’t remember it being there last time he looked, even if that _was_ some fifty years ago, which is why he came to investigate. ( _He regrets that decision, just a little._ )

“You have a name?” his assailant asks.

Kratos takes a deep breath. Decides not to lie, for some reason.

“Kratos Aurion,” he says.

The woman holding him laughs, sharp and bright. “Yeah, right!” she says. “The driver of the Aegises, man who ended the First Great War? He’s been dead hundreds of years.”

Kratos raises his eyebrows, surprised by the passion she insists this with. He supposes his disappearance from the world’s eye would have made it seem that way, but… “What makes you say that?” he asks.

“Because no human could have lived this long!” is the answer he gets.

Kratos’ chest constricts. No. _No._

“Who says he was human?” he counters, a quiet question whispered in disbelief.

“Every history book ever,” the woman explains, haughty and still oh-so-confident. “I doubt _both_ countries got that wrong.”

Kratos laughs, empty. Of course they would. Humans just couldn’t stand the thought of their war being stopped by a blade—a _flesh eater_. Changing history so it was one of their own that ended it made it easier to swallow, didn’t it? Anger sparks in his chest.

“Kratos Aurion was a blade,” he says, voice cold. He reaches up to wrench the knife away from his neck, the woman startled enough by his declaration that he manages to get it away from her. “In fact, he is a flesh eater, and has lived hundreds of years.” He spins the knife around in his palm, holds it over his shoulder so his assailant can get a good look at the mix of blood and ether that clings to the metal. “I am he.”

The woman is silent for a moment, then she releases him and snatches her knife back. She squints a little closer at it. “Well I’ll be damned…”

Now that he can see her, Kratos can tell she’s a human, which comes as a bit of a surprise, and immediately sets him on edge. ( _He can’t help it. Few interactions he’s had with humans have been good._ ) She’s a head shorter than him, brown hair cropped to her shoulders, dark eyes. Something about her gives Kratos the sense of Strength—not necessarily physical, though she’s not _lacking_ in muscles, either—which doesn’t exactly comfort him.

When she looks up at him with anger in those dark eyes, Kratos regrets coming here completely.

“Then tell me, _Kratos Aurion._ ” She manages to spit his name like it’s a curse. “If you’ve been alive all this time, then why the _hell_ are we still at war? Stopped one and then decided it was time to retire, who gives a damn what the world thinks!”

Kratos scowls.

“Humans are much too stubborn,” he says. “It became clear to me that they were never going to stop their endless war. So, yes, I gave up.”

Hearing the same argument every twenty years made it easy to get exasperated. They stopped listening to him at peace talks. He had less sway with only one Aegis. No one would admit to having Martel. They all eyed Mithos hungrily. Mithos gave up after a hundred years. Kratos after two hundred, and he barely made it that long, with Mithos’ distaste for humanity filling him to his core each time he tried. It’s strange, actually, to stand before a human and _not_ be filled to the brim with Mithos’ hatred. But he isn’t Mithos’ driver anymore.

(Humanity would _never_ listen to him, now.)

The woman standing before him shakes her head, disgusted. “Not all humans want this war,” she says. “Some of us actually want to see it _end._ Some of us actually want to live without the fear that everything will be ripped from us at a moment’s notice.”

Kratos stares at her, surprised by the notion. If he’s heard a human protest about the endless war, it’s been a very, _very_ long time.

“Is that so?” Kratos asks.

The woman considers him a long moment, and then slowly, she grins. “It is,” she says. With a flourish, she wipes her knife clean and returns it to its sheath. “My name’s Anna Irving. Let me show you.”

She leads him into the village.

 

\- - -

 

 “So what are you guys all traveling for, anyway?” Zelos asks, when they finish setting up camp for the day. He’s been traveling with them for around a week now—constant movement, traveling mostly at night, avoiding the towns, because certainly they won’t get anywhere carting around a stolen Aegis.

“We need to stop Mithos,” Lloyd answers. He can feel Martel’s sorrow in his soul, cold and deep, watches Kratos turn his head away from the conversation. ( _They both know it is necessary, but the reality doesn’t hurt any less._ ) Lloyd sets his jaw and keeps his attention on Zelos. “If you could come with us—I mean, you don’t have to, but… It’d be helpful.”

Zelos flaps his hand. “Uh-huh, sure,” he says. He and Lloyd are sitting near the center of camp. “And what’s this Mithos guy up to?” Zelos leans back on his hands, his tone still totally casual.

Lloyd grits his teeth, a little. “He wants to destroy humanity.”

That’s what they have to stop, anyway. Mithos’ ideas about blades aren’t bad, and maybe if they work together, they can really solve the problem Mithos is getting at but. He _can’t_ destroy humanity. He _can’t_.

Zelos laughs.

“What?” Lloyd says.

“Heh, just can’t say I blame him,” Zelos answers. “Humans _suck._ Well, most of ‘em anyway.” He turns his head a little to where Sheena and Seles are sitting and talking to Colette. Lloyd does not yet know him well enough to see how fondness brims in his eyes, even though the smile drops from his face.

Somehow, sentiments like this are more infuriating coming from the guy Lloyd just met rather than those he has been traveling with for ages now. Genis has made it no secret that he hates humans, too. But then, it is precisely the genuine nature of Genis’ pain that makes it harder to be bothered by, while Zelos seems to be treating the whole thing as a joke.

It’s pissing Lloyd off.

“So?” he demands, voice sharp. “That doesn’t make destroying the whole of humanity _okay_!”

Zelos gives Lloyd that unfazed flap of his hand again. “Sure sure. But I understand where Mithos is coming from.”

Lloyd gets to his feet.

“He’s _wrong,_ ” Lloyd spits. “ _You’re_ wrong!!”

Zelos laughs. “Says who? You?” He looks up at Lloyd from the ground, eyes narrowed, lips pulled in some kind of smile. “You think just because you stole an Aegis or two means you get to boss people around? Gimme a break! You’re just another human.”

“Maybe I am!” Lloyd shoots back, clenching his hands into fists. (Maybe he _was,_ truthfully, but now a piece of his father’s core crystal sits in his chest.) “But—”

Some piece of Colette’s unease seems to catch up to him, and Lloyd realizes that most of the camp is watching, now. He reminds himself to breathe. Getting pissed off at _Zelos_ isn’t going to fix anything. And Zelos is _right,_ the same way that Genis is, that Mithos is. There are a lot of really, _really_ bad humans out there, even if not all of them are awful. Lloyd tightens his hands as he inhales, releases and lowers them as he exhales.

“Look,” Lloyd says. Zelos continues to watch him with that infuriating amused glint. “I just want to- to _change_ things. And maybe it’s too much to ask, after all they’ve put you through—” ( _Half delirious stumbling through the pain when they pulled him out of the cannon_ ) “—too much, to ask you to put your faith in a human, but. Please, Zelos.” There is a burning, in Lloyd’s chest. Something he hopes to be able to convey. “I don’t just want to stop Mithos, I want to make the world _better_ , so… Could you put your faith in me?”

“Hmph.”

Zelos rolls his shoulders and gets to his feet, still smiling, eyes still narrowed. In a flash of orange light, the setting sun behind him, he calls his sword. Where Martel’s sword glows green and Colette’s pink, Zelos’ burns with orange.

“Prove to me you deserve that faith,” Zelos says.

Lloyd staggers a step backward, surprised by this turn of events.

“What?” he gasps.

“You wanna change the world?” Zelos asks, gesturing with his sword. “Then show me how much it means to you.”

He settles into a loose stance, waits for Lloyd.

Lloyd grits his teeth. “Colette!” he calls, and her sword comes to his hands.

Its weight familiar, passion burning in his gut, Lloyd runs forward. Letting his momentum carry him, he swings. Zelos catches it with a block. Lloyd yelps a little in surprise when the swords connect. The impact shouldn’t make his arms burn this much, but it’s like they’re on fire. He backs off. The familiar weight becomes heavy.

Zelos moves this time. He raises his sword high, brings it down on Lloyd. Lloyd only just blocks, his movements sluggish, arms still burning. The collision reverberates through Lloyd’s aching arms, resonating with a sudden ache in his soul. He chokes on the sensation.

“Lloyd!” Colette calls. Her voice is tight.

“I’m fine,” Lloyd tells her. He shoves Zelos’ sword away from him so he can roll to the side. The passion in his gut has turned into a pit of anxiety. How is he going to fight like this?

“Come on, that all you got?” Zelos taunts.

Lloyd pushes to his feet, rushes Zelos. Ducks under a swipe of Zelos’ sword. Swings at Zelos’ exposed back, but Zelos leaps into the air. Lloyd curses. Colette’s sword feels too heavy to lift. What is going _on_?

“ _Lloyd!_ ” Colette calls again, as Zelos lands, runs at Lloyd.

Getting Colette’s sword in a position to block is five times as difficult. The impact of Zelos’ hitting it hurts so badly Zelos’ sword might as well have connected with Lloyd himself. Colette cries out, and Zelos makes a sound that could either be a yelp or a laugh, but Lloyd isn’t sure because at that moment Colette’s sword vanishes from his hands.

“What—”

“I’m sorry, Lloyd,” Colette gasps. She sounds like she might be crying. “I don’t know why but I can’t—”

Zelos pushes Lloyd to the ground, Lloyd too surprised to stop him. “You should have noticed she was suffering sooner,” he sneers. “Typical human. Not even listening to his blade!”

“That’s—” Lloyd begins to protest, but Zelos is right, at least about this. Shame bubbles in his throat. He squeezes his eyes shut. Not only did he let Colette down, but he let Zelos down, too.

“You’re just using her to win your fight, anyway!” Zelos continues. “Honestly, just like every other human…” He clicks his tongue in disappointment. Lloyd trembles.

_No._

“I’ll show you,” he says, pushing himself to his feet. He heads over to his bags, walking with his shoulders straight and head high through the rest of the camp. All eyes are on him. He does not bend under their weight. From his bags he retrieves a pair of swords—a gift from his father, Dirk, held onto because they _were_ a gift. He unsheathes them with care. “You want to know how much I care about this world, Zelos?” He walks back towards the center of camp, taking his place across from Zelos. “Then I’ll show you, with my _own_ strength.”

He runs at Zelos. It’s kind of weird, holding two swords instead of just one again, but this was how he grew up learning to fight. Muscle memory kicks in before too long. Swipe left, swipe right, jump swing both, crash against Zelos’ sword. The impact doesn’t hurt this time.

“More comfortable with two swords, huh?” Zelos asks. He sounds delighted for some reason, even though he’s been pushed back quite a bit by Lloyd’s blows.

“Guess so,” Lloyd answers. He laughs, nervous, made uncomfortable by his inability to read Zelos.

Zelos’ eyes darken, as if to prove that point.

“Still,” he says. “I know your type. You think it’s _just fine_ if blades are used as tools.”

Lloyd is so offended by the notion he doesn’t read that Zelos is about to jump back, and stumbles when his weight suddenly isn’t braced against Zelos’.

“No I don’t!” he shouts at Zelos as he recovers. “Of course I don’t!”

“And yet here you are— _dragging Colette around to fight in your stupid war!”_ With a roar, Zelos runs at Lloyd and when Lloyd ducks under his slice he follows up with a kick that would have connected with Lloyd’s stomach if not for two things.

One: Zelos is clearly off balance, like this is the first time he’s done this.

Two: Lloyd, who is very used to his father fighting like this, anticipates it well enough to know to get out of the way.

“What? _No_!” Lloyd protests, as Zelos nearly falls on his ass. Lloyd is too distracted to think much of it, but Sheena and Seles snort on the sidelines. “You’ve got it all backwards! She’s not here because of me, _I’m_ here because of her! Because of _them!_ ”

“That’s right!” Colette adds. “Mithos, he’s- he’s Martel’s brother. Lloyd’s just helping her, helping _us_ …!”

Zelos’ eyes narrow.

( _He probably doesn’t need to know anymore than that, but he pushes a little deeper anyway, just to make sure, absolutely sure—_ )

“But what they did to Colette,” he says, coiling like a viper prepared to strike. “That’s fucked up, right?” ( _Something angry, something entirely new, cracks like a whip within his veins._ ) Screaming, he launches forward. “You aren’t just gonna let them get away with that, are you!?”

Lloyd blocks the heavy blow with crossed swords, buckling a tiny bit under the weight of Zelos’ anger. He does not let himself bend, though. He digs in his heels. Pushes against Zelos’ sword with aching muscles. Zelos seems to be putting all he’s got into this, orange ether hot and blinding along the length of his sword, leaving spots dancing in Lloyd’s vision as he tries to look past it and at Zelos’ face.

“Of _course_ not,” Lloyd insists, shifting his weight, trying to find the leverage to shove Zelos away.

The force Zelos is exerting ebbs a bit, as he drops one hand from his sword and thumps it hard against his chest. His mouth is turned in a snarl, eyes brimming with pain. In the distance, Seles almost chokes on his anger.

“What about _me_?!” he demands, voice hot like he’s letting all of his anguish spill out. “You gonna let them get away with what they did to me!!!”

He’s desperate enough that he gets sloppy, so Lloyd pushes him back and breaks away. He swipes his swords down so that they’re at his sides, looks at Zelos with his chin in the air, certain in this more than anything else.

“ _Never_! They had no right to use you like that!!” If his voice shakes, it’s not from lack of conviction, it’s because thinking about what they did to Zelos makes his stomach fill up with fury so deep it makes him sick. “You’re not a _weapon_ , you’re a _person,_ and _you_ should get to decide to use your power how _you_ want! Not how someone else wants!”

Zelos’ eyes go wide.

Lloyd takes a step forward.

“If I had my way, Zelos— _no one_ would use you as a tool of destruction ever again,” he promises.

Zelos stares, his jaw a little slack. Then he smiles.

“Heh,” he says, and dismisses his sword. “I think I’ve learned enough.” With his head lowered and eyes closed, he looks… satisfied.

Lloyd lowers his swords the rest of the way, blinking in his surprise. “L- _Learned_ …? What was this, some kind of test!?”

“Guess you could call it that.” Zelos shrugs, then shoots Lloyd a more crooked smile. “Just wanted to know if I could handle you. Wanted to know if you could handle me.”

“Come on, that made even less sense,” Lloyd whines, grateful that he’s done fighting Zelos but still confused as hell. Why does Zelos look so certain, so happy? Lloyd thinks about complaining some more, but swallows it, because—

Even if he doesn’t understand, he can feel it. How profound this moment is.

Zelos holds out a hand to him.

Lloyd’s breath catches in his chest.

“What do you say to being my new driver?” Zelos asks.

“Uh,” Lloyd answers, kind of stunned. He feels himself blush, under the intensity of Zelos’ gaze, feels embarrassed that _that’s_ his answer. But… “Hang on, you can just _do_ that?”

There’s a flash of green in his mind, and Lloyd knows Martel has swapped with Colette without looking.

“Aegises can,” Martel explains.

Lloyd looks cautiously at her, then back at Zelos.

“And… you don’t forget?”

Zelos shakes his head. “Aegises don’t,” he says. “We’re lucky like that.”

“I…” Lloyd says, but he can’t say yes, just yet. He turns to Seles. “You don’t mind, do you, Seles?”

Seles laughs, shakes her head, a near perfect mirror of her blade. Almost like they’re siblings. “Trust me, I absolutely don’t mind,” she insists, grin bright, a little bitter. “I never… _wanted_ to be the Aegis’ driver. Besides, I think he’d be better off with you.”

( _Lloyd isn’t looking to see Zelos blush, but Seles can_ feel _it, and like the perfect little sister she is, she relishes in that sensation being one of the last she feels from him._ )

“Well? What do you say?” Zelos presses.

Lloyd turns back to him, grinning.

“If this is what you want, I’d be happy to,” Lloyd says.

Zelos blinks, like he’s kind of startled. He nods, kind of jerkily, and almost chokes on his next words.

“It is what I want.”

Lloyd slides his swords into the ground and puts his hand in Zelos’. Zelos tugs on it, gently, and leads Lloyd’s hand to his chest. He places it against his core crystal. There’s a little jolt under Lloyd’s skin.

Zelos’ smile, illuminated by the orange glow of his core crystal, fills Lloyd’s vision.

“Be gentle with me while I’m gone, honey,” he says.

And then he goes dormant, leaving nothing but a softly glowing orange crystal cradled in Lloyd’s hands.

 

\- - -

 

Sheena corners Lloyd, later that day.

“You better take care of him,” she says. She jabs a finger in Lloyd’s face, her eyes those of a person who means violence. “You better, or I’ll hunt you down and make you regret it.”

Lloyd laughs and puts his hands up in surrender.

“Okay, okay, I will,” he promises. Zelos’ crystal feels warm, in his pocket, which Lloyd thinks is perhaps a kind of weird place to keep it but putting it in his bag would be even weirder and just holding it constantly doubly so, never mind a totally bad idea.

Sheena jabs her finger one more time, then retreats just a little. She doesn’t leave completely, just looks off to the horizon. The stars are peeking out, on the edge of the sky.

“You better,” she says again. A stray breeze pulls a few strands of her hair loose. Automatically she tucks them behind her ear.

The conversation should probably be done here, but there’s something Lloyd wants to know, even if it’s probably rude to ask.

“Did you…” He pauses, fumbling for the words. “Would _you_ rather be his driver, instead of me?” He asks the question as softly as he can manage. He feels guilty. Sheena seems to care so much about Zelos, and yet _he’s_ the one Zelos handed over driver rights to, even though he hasn’t known Zelos even ten times as long as Sheena has.

It seems… unfair, maybe? What’s so special about him?

Sheena exhales. She won’t look at Lloyd.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “I couldn’t resonate with him. Couldn’t resonate with any blade. Corrine’s… artificial. More so than Zelos is.”

That said, she walks off into the night.

Lloyd doesn’t follow.


	3. Chapter 3

Zelos doesn’t seek her out first thing after he wakes up, but Seles hadn’t expected him to. The fact he seeks her out almost exactly three hours after waking up, once all the “formalities” and other things were over with? That, Seles had expected. Even without an emotional bond, she still knows how to read him. She could tell he was getting a little tense, and retreating to her company was… a breath of fresh air. Or at least, it used to be, for him.

She’s standing under the shade of the tree that isn’t too far from where they set up camp—the party stopped as soon as possible once Zelos had reawakened—thinking about the future, when Zelos trots over. The closer he gets the more he tries to make it look like he’s casual about the whole thing, but he isn’t fooling anyone.

Seles waits for him to speak, pretty sure he’s got something on his mind. It takes him a moment, but finally, in a low, kind of brutally honest tone he seems to reserve for her:

“You aren’t like… mad, are you?” he asks.

Seles raises her eyebrows, feigning ignorance.

“About what?”

Zelos shifts uncomfortably, scratching at the back of his head. “You know, me revoking your driver’s rights, and all…?” The look he sends down at her is expectant, worried. He’s really not that hard to read.

She does miss, though, _feeling_ his emotions, nestled at the back of her head. It’s strangely empty, with him gone. Seles isn’t sure if its in a bad way or not. It just kind of Is.

(She’s already more used to it today than she was yesterday, and the day before that.)

To answer his question, Seles levels a Look at him, raised eyebrows and playfulness. “Come on, Zelos,” she teases. “You already know the answer to that.”

( _He did, and that’s why he even asked Lloyd. If he’d thought for a moment that Seles would have been upset about him transferring rights, he wouldn’t have done it. Seles was his first friend, his sister, and he wouldn’t dare rip something away from her like that._ )

Zelos lets out a long breath, slumps against the tree. Eyes closed, hands behind his head. Sunlight filtered through leaves dances on his skin.

“Well, yeah,” he says, like it’s no big deal, _of course_ he knew. His tone hooks upward, though, in a way that makes Seles anticipate a _but_ … “But I… Well, I don’t know.”

He’s very good with words, except when he’s being completely sincere.

Seles studies him a moment, subconsciously reaching for a link that isn’t there anymore. As if she needed it to read the way his fingers clench in his hair, the half-hidden grimace on his lips. She _knows_ him. She knows what he’s thinking.

He’s thinking he shouldn’t have left her for someone else at all.

She doesn’t mind, of course. She really doesn’t. She did not ask to be his driver—she was voluntold—and though she loves him, would stay with him if he wanted to stay with her, she doesn’t mind so much that he’s gone. It’s just a matter of making him believe that.

She could reassure him with the objective facts. Could tell him that _obviously_ he’s better with Lloyd, and, come on, could she really separate him from Colette? They’re a _set_. But… Seles knows her brother too well to dare tell him something that wouldn’t help him. It’s not the most important thing, anyway.

Instead, she asks him: “Do you regret it?”

“No,” Zelos answers, without hesitation. And with the most conviction he’s had in his entire life—or at least, for as long as she’s known him.

Seles smiles.

“Then how could I be mad?” she insists.

He deserved to make a choice, for once in his life. She’s glad he got the chance to.

Zelos jolts away from the tree, scratching at his head. He’s laughing his loud and kind of uncertain laugh—one of his most genuine ones—like he isn’t sure how to process this at all and, yeah, alright. It’s probably a lot for him to take in. This whole “freedom” thing.

It’s a lot for Seles, too.

She breathes in the fresh air, free of the muggy stench that comes from having a wall on nearly every side of you and completely lacking the scent of grimy government men who just want you to sit pretty and do as told. She breathes it in until it could fill her up, because the grass smells wonderful and the sky is so blue and the way the sun casts patterns on the ground through the leaves is frankly mesmerizing, though none of these things—none of them—taste quite as good as the reality of her freedom.

She isn’t the Aegis’ driver anymore.

She’s just Seles Wilder, who is traveling with the stolen Aegises by choice, and not because anyone told her to.

“So, yeah,” she says, picking up a train of thought she never really started aloud. “I definitely don’t hate you for this.”

Zelos moves so violently to gape at her that Seles sends a look at him, and giggles. He tries to recover quickly, like he has no idea why she said that, and attempts to play it off with a mostly-deadpan and almost convincingly confused:

“What.”

Seles giggles again. “You were thinking it,” she tells him, matter-of-fact.

“I was not,” Zelos denies.

Seles rolls her eyes, grins a little wider.

“Honestly, just because I’m not your driver any more doesn’t mean I can’t still read you like an open book,” she says.

Zelos scowls, but doesn’t answer.

Speaking of reading him like an open book…

“By the way, Zelos?”

“Yeah?”

Seles grins, wide and maybe kind of mean, but that’s her job as a younger sister, isn’t it? To cause her dear older brother as much grief as she is physically capable of?

“You’ve got it. _So_ bad. For Lloyd.”

And she can’t feel him blush anymore, can’t feel the spike of anger and embarrassment that must resonate in his mind—(Lloyd can feel that now, can’t he?)—but she can _see_ him blush, the soft glow of orange in his cheeks, _see_ how wide his eyes get and _hear_ how he flustered he sounds. Seles laughs delightedly as he covers his face with one hand and waves the other furiously at her.

“Hey!!” he protests.

But he doesn’t deny it.

 

\- - -

 

Presea finds Mithos in the library.

Not that she was looking for him, but neither is she surprised, exactly. Mithos likes to spend his time in the library. If he isn’t experimenting, he’s here, reading books that he must have read a million times before.

He’s not reading now, though, which is what Presea does find surprising about all of this.

Mithos is sitting between rows of shelves, head between his knees, fingers curled into blonde hair. He’s crying, or maybe he’s laughing—his body heaves with his hysterics, regardless. Presea stands there and watches for an uncomfortable second, trying to decide what to do. She wonders if it’s better to… leave him? Probably not. But that doesn’t make her any more certain of how to approach. Usually Kratos took care of this.

Kratos isn’t here right now.

( _And considering he gave half his core crystal to the boy he’s traveling with, to his son, part of Presea wonders if Kratos will ever be here again._

 _But then, Mithos is his family too, isn’t he…?_ )

Presea takes a deep breath. It… can’t be too different from comforting Alicia, right? Except Alicia was a human with relatively human worries, and Mithos is an Aegis with hundreds of years behind him and worries that encompass the whole of the world.

Still.

Older sister that she is, she can’t just do _nothing_.

She steps towards him, kneels down close to him, facing him with her back to the opposite bookshelf. Close enough that he’ll know she’s here. Not any closer. Not unless he wants that, and she has no idea if he does.

“Mithos…?” she says, cautiously.

“They all betrayed me,” he whispers, and then he laughs, and it’s the most broken laugh she’s ever heard, sharp around the edges, full of despair. “They all—even my _sister_.”

It takes a moment for Presea to understand. Then she remembers where he was, last. Meeting up with his sister, after hundreds of years, after being somewhat certain she was dead. Presea remembers feeling jealous. She’s not jealous now.

“Kratos?” Presea asks, though she always knows.

Mithos laughs again. This one’s a little more angry. “Him too,” he spits. But Presea still hears the despair behind it.

( _Presea… isn’t surprised._ )

“They think I’m wrong, that I’m _too extreme,_ for wanting to end humanity,” Mithos says, pulling his head up from between his knees. His eyes are red, tears still brimming in them, but his expression is foul, edging much closer to rage than sadness. “Even after all humanity has done to hurt all of us. Even though I just want to set blades _free_! Is that so _wrong_!?”

Presea hesitates. She has never been completely sold on his motives and means, but…  It’s… easy, maybe too easy, to forget everything Mithos has done, everything he intends to do, in this moment. He sounds… Lost. Tired. Sad. _Young._

He is much older than she is, and she has to remind herself of that, because he doesn’t look it.

( _She’s used to having a younger sibling, though. It’s easy, much too easy, to fill the role of older sister without even thinking about it._ )

“Well, Presea?” Mithos pushes. “Am I _wrong_?”

Presea tries to gather her thoughts. Setting blades truly free is a nice thought, a worthy goal. And humanity…? Well, as long as no one can be tricked like she and Alicia were, she supposes she doesn’t care.

Maybe burning the whole of them is wrong. Maybe it isn’t.

She doesn’t want to make Mithos any more upset than he already is.

“No,” she tells him, and it tastes like bile on her tongue. Is it a lie? Maybe it is.

“At least someone thinks so,” Mithos whispers, head falling back against the shelves behind him. He sounds so relieved that Presea finds it easy to push the discomfort out of her chest.

She moves, sits down next to him. She’s still not sure if he wants the contact, but she wants to offer it. ( _Alicia was always clingy, after a long cry. It’s the best way Presea knows to be helpful._ )

Mithos leans into her, head resting on her shoulder. He’s small and solid, and she reaches up to brush hair out of his face before she’s thought about it.

“You won’t betray me, will you Presea?” Mithos asks, in a tiny voice.

Presea’s breath hitches.

“I’ll… follow you as far as I can,” she promises.

“Thank you,” Mithos whispers.

 

\- - -

 

Martel corners him while he’s cleaning up from the night’s meal.

“Martel,” Kratos says, by way of greeting.

“Kratos,” Martel replies.

She steps in to help him with the dishes.

“I can… handle it myself, you know,” Kratos says, carefully. “It’s my turn tonight, anyway.”

“And? It’ll go faster if you have help!” Martel smiles at him, perhaps… a little too knowingly. Kratos sighs. He supposes he wasn’t going to be able to get away with this forever. Even if they aren’t driver and blade, anymore, they are still friends. She knows how to read him.

“Alright,” he says, because she won’t take no for an answer and it would be rude to walk off and let her finish alone. So he lets her help, and he waits.

And he waits.

And—

“You haven’t been avoiding me, have you, Kratos?” Martel asks.

There it is.

“…No,” Kratos answers.

“ _Kratos_.”

“A little bit.”

Martel nods. “That’s what I thought,” she says. She bumps her shoulder against his, a playful, accusing nudge that only doesn’t make his chest clutch with discomfort because today is a good day and she is Martel. “Any particular reason why?”

A lot of reasons, in fact, though none of them her fault. The guilt he carries is just becoming too much to bear, and it’s hardest to shoulder it when he faces her—faces the one who deserves explanations and apologies the most, the one who deserves a world where he could have done her and her little brother both better.

The ways he has failed Mithos weigh heavy on him, have weighed heavy, for the past hundreds of years. Kratos just finds it hurts more, now that they stand on the opposite side of a war from Mithos. He owes Martel so much more.

( _“We won’t have to fight each other again, will we, sis?”_

_Martel had seemed uncertain, so Kratos had stepped in._

_“You won’t,” he promised them. “Not as long as I’m alive.”_ )

Kratos takes a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “About Mithos. I’m sorry I let him lose his way.”

Martel looks up from the plate she’s scrubbing, surprised. Kratos ducks his head down and hunches his shoulders, making himself smaller in the wake of her oncoming anger. She was so distraught, after meeting with Mithos the way they had. Surely she must be furious with him. Or at least, upset. If Kratos had just—

Martel’s hand rests on his shoulder.

“I don’t blame you, Kratos. After so many hundreds of years… It must have been easy, to lose your way.”

Kratos nearly comes undone, under the gentleness of her touch.

“It was,” he admits.

Martel tightens her grip.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and her voice trembles.

Kratos shakes his head. “You don’t have to be.”

They do not share an emotional bond, anymore, but Kratos knows the grief that stirs in her core. He wishes she would not feel it. She is not to blame for dying. Only he and Mithos are to blame, for falling apart in the wake of it.

“Maybe…” Martel says, quiet, her voice edging on hopeful. “Maybe we can talk some sense into him. Make him see that there is still good in this world.”

( _If there is anything Martel has endless wells of, it’s fervent—if foolish—hope in her brother. She has to believe the best in him, because no one else will._ )

Kratos nods.

“I hope so.”

 

\- - -

 

Botta sits with his hand up his shirt, fingers tracing the shape of the chunk of Yuan’s core crystal that’s now set in his chest. Much like one can’t stop running their tongue over a cracked tooth, or picking at a scab, Botta finds himself obsessed with the sensation of it. The crystal is smooth, warm—though not as warm as Botta knows the other half placed on Yuan’s collarbone is—and more than that, it’s _Yuan’s_.

The thought that he has a piece of Yuan with him, forever? It makes Botta indescribably warm.

( _A memory comes back to him. The warmth and gentleness of Yuan’s voice as he said “Will you marry me?”, the way the words had filled Botta with surprise and delight so bright it made the joy of being not-dead pale in comparison. The cocky pull of Yuan’s lips when, after Botta asked about the timing, he replied: “Well, I did just give you half my heart, didn’t I?” Like it wasn’t a big deal. Like it wasn’t the most beautiful thing ever._ )

Remembering they’re going to get _married,_ when all this is over, makes Botta grin.

He feels Yuan approach more than he hears him, a resonation between the two halves of the core crystal that pulls Botta’s attention to his fiancé as Yuan sits down next to him. Yuan smiles, bright and wide, and Botta grins back, easily feeling five times lighter in Yuan’s presence.

Yuan’s smile falls to worry, though, when he notices where Botta’s hand is. He leans in, eyes narrowed. “It doesn’t hurt, does it?” he asks, his voice hitting that frantic pitch it does when he’s concerned.

Botta laughs, immensely fond, and shakes his head. “No, no, it’s fine,” he assures Yuan. He should perhaps stop feeling the crystal, to put Yuan at ease, but he’s too fascinated with the way it connects to his scarred skin. “Honestly I’m…” He blushes, a little, but even around the sudden knot in his throat persists: “I’m glad it’s here? Maybe that’s strange.”

Yuan’s eyes go wide, and then his cheeks slowly begin to glow with his blush. He turns his head away, hand covering his smile—he only does that when he’s embarrassed. It’s cute.

“Truthfully, Botta,” Yuan says, grinning too wide for his hand to really hide it. “I’m glad, too. Knowing that a part of me is keeping you alive? It’s…” He takes a moment to search for a word, then shrugs and says: “Nice.”

Botta would make fun, for Yuan’s choice words, but he can _feel_ the joy in Yuan’s chest as he says it, so it’s alright. It’s a hard thing to describe, anyway. This being more aware of Yuan than he’s ever been before, and how, well… _nice,_ it is.

“I do worry, though,” Yuan says, becoming serious once again. “About ether being introduced to a human system. It’s not like humans were _built_ to run on ether.”

Botta hums. Yuan’s worries aren’t entirely unfounded, he supposes, but… “Humans already have ether in their bodies, though. Everything does. We just don’t run solely on ether, like blades do.” Which is likely why introducing blood and other human things to a blade’s system has such disastrous consequences, Botta thinks.

“That’s true…” Yuan agrees slowly, though he doesn’t sound wholly convinced.

“It hasn’t killed Lloyd yet,” Botta adds.

Yuan laughs. “That’s also true,” he says. He shakes his head, puts his hands up briefly in surrender. “Alright, alright, I’ll stop worrying.”

“Good,” Botta says, though he’s immensely fond. Yuan wouldn’t be Yuan, if he didn’t worry.

Botta runs his fingers over the crystal in his chest again, then pauses, a thought occurring to him.

“Can you feel it?” he asks.

Yuan turns to him, head tilted in confusion.

“Feel what?”

Botta chuckles, embarrassed for thinking he didn’t need to elaborate. “I mean, it’s still _your_ core crystal, even if it’s sitting in my chest now,” he says, trying to package his thought process into a convenient explanation. “So I was just thinking…” He stops there, his knowledge of how sensitive core crystals are paired with the idea that Yuan’s maybe _felt_ him obsessing with the crystal for the past hour making him a little too embarrassed to find the rest of the words. His cheeks are hot as he continues to trace the edge of the crystal with his fingers.

“Ohh,” Yuan says, with a sigh of understanding. “No, I-” He begins to shake his head, then pauses and really considers it. After a moment, he shakes his head for real. “No,” he settles on. Then he shoots Botta a knowing smile. “At least, not the way you were thinking. Which is… probably good, for me.”

Botta laughs. “Probably,” he agrees, knowing just how easy it is to make Yuan come undone when he’s kissing Yuan’s core crystal. He feels relieved, but also a little disappointed, if he’s honest. Oh well. He finally pulls his hand away from the crystal, grabbing Yuan’s hand instead. The rest of what Yuan said processes in his brain, as he’s running his thumb over the circular ether line in Yuan’s palm. “You… _can_ feel it, though?” he asks.

Yuan nods and shrugs at the same time. “Kind of,” he corrects. “But it’s more like ripples, echoes along the ether link connecting me to that crystal than a physical sensation.”

Botta nods, to show he understands. He wonders if that ether link is what allows him to be more aware of Yuan, now.

Yuan reaches up and taps at his core crystal, eyes falling shut. “I can also feel… your heartbeat,” he whispers. “Slow and steady… Well, a little faster now…” He smirks.

Botta flushes red, but how can he help it? Yuan can’t just _say_ things like that and not expect a reaction.

“It’s… strange,” Yuan continues, eyes still closed. “But… comforting, too. The constant reassurance that you’re still alive. I quite like it.”

Fondness tugs at Botta’s chest, along with something sadder. He scoots closer to Yuan, so he can press his shoulder against his fiancé’s. “You worry too much,” he says, gentle.

“Considering _you_ don’t seem to worry about your safety at all, I think I worry plenty,” Yuan counters, grinning even if he sounds a little annoyed. “ _Someone_ has to make sure we don’t die!”

Love fills Botta to bursting. He squeezes Yuan’s hand a little tighter.

He’s going to marry this man, he thinks, with determination and delight. He can hardly wait for the day.

 

\- - -

 

 “How can such a terrible thing exist?” Genis asks. This is not the first time he’s wondered this. Walking through the facility that houses the Aegis cannon makes his skin crawl, even though _he’s_ not in danger of being hooked up to the thing. He hopes Colette and Martel are faring okay, having heard Martel wake up screaming from nightmares enough nights already.

The Aegis cannons are truly terrible things.

“Because humanity sure loves their war,” Seles answers, with a laugh somewhere between unconcerned and bitter. “It’s not even the first time Zelos has been in one. First time since I became his driver, though.”

“It… hurts, doesn’t it?” Raine asks, cautiously.

Seles nods, short. “Like a bitch,” she answers. Genis wonders why Raine bothered asking—she remembers the state they found Seles in, doesn’t she? Seles could hardly speak, let alone move. Yuan had to carry her until just recently. “Good thing Sheena got him out of there.”

“He shouldn’t have been in there to begin with,” Genis mumbles. He feels like he’s burning, on the inside. Blades aren’t just _tools,_ to be used. They aren’t _weapons_ to be used by humans. Especially not like _this_. “Humans are _sick_.”

Venom in his throat makes him want to choke. Raine sends him a worried look that he doesn’t see.

“He wouldn’t have been in there if it wasn’t for me.” There’s guilt in Seles’ voice that makes Genis reconsider his murderous thoughts for a moment. “He would have fought a lot harder if they hadn’t put a knife to my throat.” She laughs, once, short and bitter.

Blades really would be better off without drivers, Genis thinks. For all the problems being a flesh eater has come with, not needing a driver certainly isn’t one of them. Drivers just give blades a _weakness,_ something you need to protect whether you want to or not, and if you’re lucky and get a _good_ one, all that gives you is someone you’d be willing to do anything for, and that, too, is a weakness. Look at Zelos, for example. Look at _Yuan_.

(A part of Genis’ mind whispers that he would probably go to such lengths for Raine in a heartbeat, but he ignores it, instead letting his mouth twist with bitterness.)

“Mithos was right,” he says. The quiet whisper and joy in Mithos’ voice when he talked of self-sufficient blades still rings in his head. If blades could survive on their own… If humanity was no more…

“That doesn’t excuse his actions,” Yuan counters.

“And what excuses humanity’s?” Genis shoots right back. “What excuse does humanity have for the _cannon_!? For what it did to Colette!? For what it did to _me_!!” It was only one human and he _knows that_ but even after ten years he can’t forget the sting of harsh hands against his skin, the ringing of cruel words in his ears and the disconcerting mess the emotion bleed made of all that and—

Raine’s hand on his back snaps him out of it, and wheezing, Genis shakes his head to clear it. There’s a dull pain burning in his chest. He’s not sure if it’s because he’s still not breathing right or if he’s going to need healing soon.

“Genis?” Raine’s voice trembles on his name.

“I’m fine,” he says, for her sake. He is not fine, though. Anger boils in his veins so thickly it makes his vision blur. Trembling hands clench into fists.

He wants to see humanity burn.

 

\- - -

 

 “Do you want me to…?” Martel offers.

Raine answers with one quick shake of her head. “I can handle it,” she says. She is more of a healing blade than Martel is anyway—it was what she was _built_ for, while healing is just one of many things Martel can do.

Besides. This is her little brother.

“It must… be hard on him,” Martel says, after a moment. Her eyes are sad, as she studies Genis. Even unconscious, his face is screwed up in pain. Who knew being a flesh eater could be so awful…

“Mm,” Raine answers, hoping the monosyllabic response will clue Martel into the fact she doesn’t want to be talking right now.

If Martel caught the hint, she sure doesn’t take it.

“It… must be hard on you, too,” Martel says.

Raine scowls.

“He’s the only one that has any right to be complaining.”

There is more fire in her voice than there needs to be. Her hands burn with healing energy, ether lines in her palms glowing with the effort, as she attempts to fix what the human cells are destroying in Genis’ body.

“That’s… not true,” Martel tries to tell her.

“You’d feel the same, if it were Mithos,” Raine counters.

Martel doesn’t respond. Of course she doesn’t. And though Raine should be happy, because she doesn’t want to be having this conversation—

“Wouldn’t you?” Raine presses, because it haunts her to the point of agony, this guilt and the anger in her stomach. She aches for validation. Martel has a little brother. She understands. “How do I have any right to complain, when _I’m_ fine and he’s the one who’s dying? He didn’t even _have_ to do this, but he _trusted_ me, because I’m his _sister_ and he thinks I know everything in the world even though I don’t and now he’s… _now_ he’s…”

He’s dying.

He won’t die today, but… Raine isn’t sure how long her magic can keep him going. Certainly not forever.

Martel takes a deep breath. Raine looks up from Genis to study her face—it’s pinched with heartbreak. Raine’s stomach churns. She scowls harder. Martel slowly reaches out and puts a hand on her shoulder. Raine doesn’t shrug it off, though she wants to.

“It’s _not_ your fault, Raine,” Martel insists. “Not knowing everything, not knowing the consequences of your actions—that’s not. You can’t be blamed for that! You did what you thought was best.”

Raine growls in her throat, frustrated.

“Sometimes I just wish I’d known that blades could drive other blades,” she sneers. Whoever twisted the history to make it taboo at best and impossible at worst deserves a smack to the face. “I should have—I should have _assumed,_ or at least guessed that a flesh eater would be able to, once they adopted the more-human properties, but I—”

She didn’t know. She panicked. She assumed it would either kill or save both of them, not assign them separate fates.

“He would have lost his memories of you,” Martel counters, gently, but firmly.

( _Raine wonders, some days, if Yuan not remembering her hurts more than Martel lets on._ )

“Yes,” Raine admits, voice tight.

Genis would have forgotten her, but so too would he have forgotten all of the horrible things that still haunt him. And, wouldn’t that be better? Wouldn’t it be better, if he couldn’t remember? Memories really are a curse, sometimes, Raine thinks. And aside from the memories—

“But that would have been a small price to pay, for his health,” Raine says, certain. “We could have always made new memories together…”

Martel’s hand trails down her arm until it rests on her wrist, gripping it lightly.

“I’m sure he wouldn’t want it any other way, though,” Martel whispers. It’s a gentle, soothing reassurance that fills Raine’s chest to the brim before she exhales it and focuses instead on reality, on the pain in Genis’ squeezed shut eyes.

“I wouldn’t blame him if he did,” Raine says.

Martel hums a soft note, stroking her thumb along Raine’s skin.

“Little brothers… look up too much to their sisters, I think,” Martel muses, her voice still soft, her eyes on the brilliant blue day-sky and not on Raine. “It is not necessarily a good thing, but… Well, I’m certain he doesn’t resent you.”

Raine breathes in, lets Martel’s softness and reassurance fill her a second time.

It’s comforting, despite it all.

 

\- - -

 

An Aegis cannon goes off.

Kratos forgets how to breathe, for a moment. The familiar, overpowering stench of charred ether in the air almost makes him sick, and the sound roars in his ears long after it is over. His mind flicks instantly, worriedly, to Mithos, but—No, that is impossible. He’d been talking with Mithos just hours ago, and it was at least a month’s journey from their home to Tethe’alla’s cannon facility, and twice that to Sylvarant’s. It must have been one of the artificials, then.

Out of curiosity more than anything else, Kratos tracks the imprint of light burned in the sky across its trajectory. Tethe’alla fired. It fired at Sylvarant, of course. Actually…

The trajectory looks to fall somewhere between the two countries, on the unclaimed borderlands—

_No._

Kratos maps out the location in his head. Anna’s town. It would be about there, wouldn’t it?

His heart drops into his stomach, and he runs.

Maybe it isn’t. Surely he can’t predict the trajectory that accurately from this distance. Maybe they’re fine—

It takes him three days to get there.

When he does, all he finds is a perfect circle of black glass, and a row of graves.

Anna’s name is on one. Kratos doesn’t search for Lloyd’s. He can’t bear the weight of confirmation.

 

\- - -

 

With a traveling party this large, it isn’t difficult to go days without sharing much more than idle greetings with some, but Kratos is pretty sure Zelos is avoiding him. Outside of two attempts to strike up a conversation that Zelos has almost immediately backed right out of, Kratos hasn’t seen the Tethe’allan Aegis much at all.

Nonetheless, Kratos has a pretty good idea what this is about. He may not be familiar enough with Zelos to read him, but Kratos _can_ read his son well enough. The persistent discomfort that comes from being weighed down with emotions that aren’t his own. The expression of guilt that lights across Lloyd’s face before it becomes confusion. Lloyd’s been like this since they talked about Anna. Zelos has been avoiding him just as long.

So the next time Zelos attempts to strike a conversation with Kratos, Kratos doesn’t let him weasel out of it.

“Something on your mind, Zelos?” Kratos says, interrupting Zelos’ vague excuse about thinking that maybe probably Seles was calling him.

Zelos stops mid-word, laughs awkwardly. “Aha, well,” he says.

Kratos wordlessly reaches over and pats the empty spot next to him on the log he’s sitting on. He’s not sure if his Lloyd-trademarked Dad Stare will work on Zelos, but it’s worked on Yuan and Genis—( _and it used to work on Mithos_ )—so he fixes Zelos with it and he waits.

Zelos pales, freckles becoming more stark against his skin. He stammers something that barely has sound, let alone words. Kratos waits. Zelos sighs. Makes a face like he hates this, but he comes and sits down next to Kratos anyway.

He’s silent for a few minutes, after which he puts his head in his hands, then is silent for a few minutes more. Kratos continues to wait. He’s very good at that.

“It’s just…” Zelos begins, sounding kind of miserable. He trembles, then in a burst of anger and despair, gets out: “ _Fuck_ , Kratos, I killed your wife.”

The weight of guilt on his shoulders seems incredible. Kratos—familiar with the sensation—hopes Lloyd is weathering the storm of it well enough.

Having expected this train of thought from Zelos, though, an answer is already formed on Kratos’ tongue.

“You did not,” he argues, gentle.

Zelos makes an angry sound that resonates in the back of his throat. “You said she got unlucky enough to get hit by an Aegis canon, right? Well, in case you forgot, it was _me_ powering that cannon, so. _I_ killed her.”

Kratos shakes his head in response before Zelos is even finished. He calls up familiar words from his memory. “The sword is not to blame for the hands that wield it,” he tells Zelos.

Zelos turns and sends a look at Kratos that is more angry than it is confused.

“ _What_?” he says.

Apparently, it’s going to take a little more to get through Zelos’ thick skull.

“Did you choose the location?” Kratos asks.

Zelos scowls.

“No.”

“Did you decide to fire?” Kratos presses, eyebrows raised.

“No,” Zelos repeats.

“If someone were to take my sword and stab Lloyd with it, would I be responsible for the murder?”

Zelos looks at him like he’s being absurd.

“ _No_ , of course not.”

Kratos quirks his eyebrows upward, a partial smile on his lips.

“Then neither are you responsible for Anna’s death,” he says.

Kratos watches as it clicks, in Zelos’ head. He feels a sense of satisfaction, of relief, as Zelos relaxes, face going slack as he processes.

Just in case this insistence alone isn’t enough, Kratos adds: “I could never blame you for this. Your only crime is getting shoved into one of those awful machines—”

If there is more venom in his voice than necessary, then so be it. The Aegis cannons are vile things. There’s no reason a contraption like that should _hurt_ as much as it does. Kratos has never been in one, no—of course he hasn’t—but he knows the pain, pain bled to him through both his link to Martel and his link to Mithos. Zelos is not his responsibility, but Kratos burns with anger and sorrow regardless, knowing this boy had to suffer the cannons’ cruelty—suffer it, and then _dare_ blame himself for it.

Zelos doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Kratos lets him digest, and tries not to overthink things. Perhaps he said too much. Perhaps he overstepped his boundaries. He is not Zelos’ driver, after all.

“Thanks,” Zelos says, finally, almost low enough for Kratos to miss it. He pats his knees and gets to his feet with a _hup._ “I should… probably tell Lloyd, shouldn’t I?”

He sounds more like he’s musing than asking for actual advice on the matter, but Kratos ends up giving some anyway.

“If that would put your mind at ease, then yes,” Kratos says. “Though I doubt Lloyd will blame you for Anna, either.” That is not like Lloyd.

“Probably not,” Zelos agrees, laughing. “But he might appreciate knowing why the hell he’s been crying for the last ten minutes. ‘Scuse me.”

( _If there’s anything Zelos is good at, it’s pushing his emotions onto his driver at times when he can’t afford to deal with them himself.)_

 

\- - -

 

Lloyd isn’t too difficult to find. He’s sitting at the opposite edge of camp, within line of sight of where Zelos and Kratos were talking. Watching the whole thing, probably. Zelos guesses he can’t blame him. He raises his hand to wave at Lloyd. Lloyd waves back. Sighing, Zelos heads over.

Lloyd sits cross-legged with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. Tears pour down his face, but he just sits and lets them, looking kind of at ease—more so now that Zelos is here? No, that’s reading too much into it—in spite of them. The sight of Lloyd’s tears still feels like a punch to the gut, though.

“You okay?” Lloyd asks as he straightens and lets his hands fall away from his face, asks as if he doesn’t know Zelos isn’t. Or, wasn’t? Zelos is feeling pretty okay now.

“Yeah, actually,” Zelos answers, which is mostly the truth, he thinks. He sits down in front of Lloyd, reaching out to wipe Lloyd’s tears away before he really thinks about it. “Sorry about, uh, sorry,” Zelos says, not really having the words to begin with and suddenly distracted by the thing he’s just done. He just wiped Lloyd’s tears away and he’s still? Got Lloyd’s face cupped in his hands? He should stop, probably, but Lloyd’s leaning into the touch, smile gentle, eyes closed—

“Nah, I get it,” Lloyd says, which takes Zelos’ distracted mind a moment to process. Right. He’d apologized. For making Lloyd cry. Right. “Seles explained.”

If there had been any air remaining in Zelos’ lungs, that would have knocked the rest of it right out. Thanks Seles, for explaining how emotionally stunted is, he guesses! That’s fine! At least Lloyd’s not mad at him?? He should really stop touching Lloyd’s face.

“Still kind of feel like a jackass,” Zelos says, laughing.

(Shoving all of his emotions off onto his driver to deal with? Definitely a dick move. But what else was he supposed to do, when what Tethe’alla wanted was the confident and reassuring presence of an Aegis, and not some guy who hated the whole lot of them and the oppressive weight of the world and wanted nothing more to be anywhere _else_. He couldn’t start fucking crying on stage. What else was he supposed to do?)

“It’s fine, really,” Lloyd insists.

“You’re… awfully calm, about all this,” Zelos presses, a little skeptical. It’s hard not to be. He hadn’t expected this reaction at all.

Lloyd shrugs. “It’s the least I can do for you,” he says.

“Ah, haha—” Zelos laughs again, but it’s more high-pitched, nervous. He tries to find his footing, nearly succeeds, but then Lloyd opens his eyes, fixing him with such a look of concern it winds Zelos completely.

“You _sure_ you’re alright?” Lloyd asks.

“I’ve never been better, actually,” Zelos answers. He feels kind of light and floaty amidst all his panic and guilt, which is weird. Architect above, emotions are baffling. “I talked things out with your old man so, things are cool now. It’s cool.”

Lloyd smiles. “That’s good,” he says.

The guilt in Zelos’ chest bubbles up a little more sharply, not quite popping but definitely overwhelming the floaty sensation, weighing him back down. Tears sting in his eyes. He doesn’t want to end this moment, of Lloyd smiling at him and him walking on air, but he apologized to Kratos. He should apologize to Lloyd, too.

He swallows. Tries to tuck an unruly strand of Lloyd’s hair back behind his ear, not thinking much about the action until he’s already through with it. Ether pounding like a drum against his core crystal and skin on fire, Zelos wets his lips and focuses instead on the words he needs to say.

“About, uh, your mom…” he begins.

Lloyd shakes his head, gently so as not to displace Zelos’ hands. Zelos drops them anyway, unable to deal with the roar of embarrassment any longer.

“Come on, Zelos, that’s not your fault,” Lloyd says. “It was the bastards who fired the cannon—who were using you like that to begin with! I’m angry at _them_ , not you.”

“Well, that’s a relief to hear,” Zelos laughs as he turns away, feeling off-kilter. It _is_ a relief that Lloyd isn’t mad at him, but—Lloyd grabs him by the face and pulls Zelos a little closer, forcing him to meet Lloyd’s eye. Zelos loses his internal balance completely, cheeks hot under Lloyd’s touch, reeling under the weight of how _serious_ Lloyd looks right now.

“Do you believe that, Zelos?” Lloyd asks—demands, really—like he needs to know the answer more than anything else. “Do you believe I’m not mad at you? That it’s not your fault?”

“I mean. Yeah?”

“It’s not, Zelos.” Lloyd’s so serious, so _genuine,_ and he _keeps saying Zelos’ name._ Zelos could melt under the sound of the way it shapes on Lloyd’s tongue. “It’s not your fault.”

“Okay, sure,” Zelos laughs, nervously. He’s let go of Lloyd but Lloyd hasn’t let go of him, why won’t Lloyd let go of him.

“ _Zelos_.”

Architect, why does Lloyd keep saying his name? Zelos is going to be murdered by the gentleness of it. It doesn’t help that Lloyd fumbles on what he wants to say next, or maybe the how of it, which means he’s not saying anything and Zelos doesn’t have anything to think about other than the echo of how Lloyd says his name. The softness, the rise and fall.

Finally Lloyd sighs, and he… leans forward, leans in, and touches his forehead to Zelos’. Zelos closes his eyes so he’ll have one less signal of this moment trying to get processed in his brain, though that still leaves him with the warmth of Lloyd’s skin and the heat of Lloyd’s breath and the firmness Lloyd is holding onto him with. Zelos feels like he has to move, somewhere, anywhere, anywhere else but he can’t break away, doesn’t _want_ to—

“Please, Zelos,” Lloyd whispers. “Just know I’m not mad at you.”

Zelos knows this. It’s hard not to. If the way Lloyd is holding him wasn’t enough evidence, then there’s the fact Zelos can feel no anger in Lloyd’s heart. He chokes on his own vocal chords as he says: “Yeah. Trust me, I’m pretty convinced there.”

“Good,” Lloyd says.

He pulls away from Zelos and lets his hands fall into his lap. An overwhelming sense of disappointment and longing hits Zelos, and he just barely stifles a whine. Somewhere, Seles is laughing, he’s sure of it. This isn’t fair, this isn’t fair, this isn’t _fair._ Why _this boy?_ He’s only known Lloyd like two weeks!

“I,” Zelos says, fumbling, but he has to say _something_ , right?

Lloyd smiles at him, eyes burning, the upturn of his lips kind of grim but confident.

“We’re going to make them pay, Zelos,” Lloyd promises. “We’re going to make them regret ever using you as a weapon at all,” and,

_Oh,_

Zelos thinks, as he shivers.

That’s why.

 

\- - -

 

Yuan sits down next to Kratos by the fire. Kratos looks up at him, but doesn’t say anything, which Yuan discovers is a Kratos habit that he has to relearn. In truth, he’s a little disappointed that sitting next to his supposed-brother doesn’t even stir any inkling of memory in his chest, but maybe that’s alright.

He waits a moment more for Kratos to ask why he’s here, but before long relearns that Kratos isn’t the kind of man who does that—or maybe just isn’t good at it, that feels kind of right—and so Yuan sighs, and he speaks first.

“I wanted… to apologize,” he says.

There’s a slight raise of Kratos’ eyebrows in Yuan’s direction, something that might be amusement on his lips but honestly how does anyone read a face that looks like it’s been carved out of stone. Yuan aches a little bit for the memories he has lost, even though he’s been trying to cling to them less tightly.

( _One could only search for so long before one gave up, and seven years into the endeavor of finding out who he used to be, Yuan had mostly given up. What did it matter, when he enjoyed the life he had built for himself now?_

_But then he saw Kratos again.)_

“For punching me?” Kratos asks, and even if his face is unreadable, there’s definitely a suggestion of disbelief in his tone.

Yuan laughs. “No,” he says. “You deserved that. And I’m still pissed the hell off at you, so don’t think you’re in the clear yet.” He jabs a finger in Kratos’ direction. Kratos puts his hands up in a gesture of peace.

“I really am sorry, Yuan,” he says. Yuan may not remember how to read him, but only a blind man could miss the guilt that soaks Kratos’ tone, that makes his face pinch like he ate something sour.

“Good,” Yuan says, because Kratos _should_ be. “Because I didn’t just lose my past, when you abandoned me. I lost friends, and family, and I lost everything we’d built together.” His hands clench into fists, pressed against his knees. Botta’s concern across their link reminds him to breathe.

Kratos flinches like each word is a physical blow. He mumbles another apology.

“It _sucks,_ Kratos,” Yuan continues. He lets himself feel the anger, because there is nothing wrong with it, though he tries to at least keep a level-head about how he’s letting it out. “Especially when it could have been so easily avoided! It took Botta three months to find me by name, once I’d been registered into the system. You had almost five hundred years. The fact you didn’t even _look_ —You know how much that hurts, right?”

Kratos nods, clearly miserable.

Yuan opens his mouth to continue spitting fire like an angry dragon, but catches himself, because maybe that’s not fair. He could go on and on about how it’s the family he lost that hurts him more than the past he can’t remember, or how it hurts that Kratos decided he was better off without them without even asking, when he wasn’t even in a position _to_ be asked. He could spend hours digging up the pain of how Kratos abused the system that oppresses blades to leave him behind—because that’s the greater offense, really—but.

 _But_.

Kratos knows all this, doesn’t he? Kratos—for what little Yuan knows of him, now—does not seem to be a man who has ever not thought and overthought every decision he makes, and fretted and regretted every decision long after he makes them. Kratos has had four hundred years to stew in his guilt. He said he was sorry. Yuan _knows_ he’s sorry.

And it’s not like yelling about it is making Yuan feeling any better.

This wasn’t even why he came over here.

He squeezes his eyes shut and turns his head away from Kratos, breathing to calm the anger inside of him. He makes himself unclench his fists, relax his shoulders. Watches for a few seconds as spots of color from the brightness of the fire dance against his eyelids.

There are more important things to think about, than the things he lost.

The things he found are at least twice as important, are they not?

Yuan breathes in, and then out.

“There was something else I came over to tell you, actually,” he says to Kratos, letting the words hang in the air for a moment before he opens his eyes again.

Kratos hums an inquisitive note, prompting Yuan to continue. Surprising, Yuan thinks.

“Well,” Yuan takes a moment to gather the words. “Despite how unfortunate it is that things turned out this way, and how angry I am with you… There is a silver lining in all of this.” A golden lining, even, because Botta shines much brighter than silver, but that is probably more than Kratos needs to hear right now.

“Is there?” Kratos asks.

Yuan nods. Watches the fire dance in front of him. A fond smile pulls at his lips, even just thinking about it.

“I met Botta,” he says. He cannot help it when the smile becomes a grin. “I met Botta, and I made a new life—one I wouldn’t have, if I’d stayed with you.”

It stings, that he was not able to build something with his family, but there is beauty much greater in the life he has now. Something so intricate, so happy. Something he would never trade, in truth. How could he trade it? The sense of duty that ties him to Kratos, the echo of love he holds for a man who was his brother in another life—it is nothing, compared to the love for his driver, a love forged through moments he _can_ remember, moments he made in _this_ life, _his_ life.

And the best news is that, in some ways, he gets to have both.

“I found you again, too,” Yuan whispers. “Which means I still get to share this life with you, and Martel. I’m grateful for that.”

When he turns to Kratos, he sees Kratos smiling.

Kratos seems to have some difficulty with the words, but: “I am, too,” he says.

Yuan grins.

 

\- - -

 

 “It’s unfortunate, what happened,” Presea says. Just vague enough that she could either be referring to the death of Kratos’ family or the fact the cannon fired at all. Kratos appreciates that about her. She’s not pressuring him to talk about his grief, just giving him an option to, if he wants to.

He doesn’t want to.

“I’ll be surprised if they don’t go back to war after this,” Kratos remarks, instead. He puts his hands on the railing before them, gripping it to hold himself steady. They stand on one of the balconies in the tower Mithos has constructed, the tower they live in. Once, it had been home, to Mithos and Kratos, and Martel and Yuan. It was where they’d tried to settle, when the first war ended.

Now, the tower stands alone in a barren field that hasn’t recovered from being watered with blood and fire, even after four hundred years. The grass and weeds that stubbornly attempt to grow all turn yellow within the month they sprout. No other vegetation even tries.

“It was a misfire, apparently,” Presea says, about the cannon. “The Tethe’allans insist something hacked their mainframe and fired the cannon while they were doing routine tests.”

She does not know the weight of the words she speaks.

But Kratos does.

Kratos does, because he knows his old blade, old friend, little brother very well.

It’s like he can’t breathe.

“Kratos?” comes Presea’s voice, distant through the overwhelming fog of despair that has clouded Kratos’ mind. “Is something wrong? Is this not good news? I know neither of us want to see the countries at war.”

There is only one person in the world with the ability to hack the Tethe’allan mainframe. The question is _why_. Did he _know_?

“Excuse me,” Kratos tells Presea, already leaving.

Finding Mithos is no hard task. He’s where he always is, when he’s not doing experiments. He’s in the library—the one place in this whole building that still looks even remotely the same, though it’s much, _much_ bigger than it used to be, now. Mithos thinks humanity is vile, but he’ll always admit their literature is good, if nothing else about them is. Kratos finds Mithos sitting in one of the large windowsills, book open on his knees.

“The cannon,” Kratos barely manages to get out around the sickness that sits in his throat. “ _Why_.”

He doesn’t need to ask if Mithos did it. He knows Mithos did. Mithos is the only person who _could_ have. The cannons are too secure to be hacked by just any external force. But Mithos is not _any_ external force. He’s the Aegis the Tethe’allan cannon was built for.

Mithos closes his book. He looks up at Kratos, unwavering.

“I wanted Sylvarant to fire back,” Mithos answers.

Kratos’ eyes narrow, as he tries to understand that. “You _want_ a war?” he asks.

“Well it would be nice if the humans destroyed themselves without me having to do it for them…” Mithos says, with a thoughtful shrug. “But.” His voice burns with a cold spark of hope. “That’s not the reason I did it. I did it because if Sylvarant fired back—We’d _know_ if they have Martel.”

Kratos blinks. Tests the weight of Mithos’ reasoning on his tongue, rolling around in his mind. There’s a hole in it.

“Sylvarant has an artificial, too,” Kratos argues.

“But why would they use it if they have the real one?” Mithos counters.

Kratos can’t dispute that one. Not that it matters. His hands clench, unclench. This isn’t important. Not as important as—

“The. The location,” Kratos chokes, through the knot in his vocal chords. He can’t manage to ask the rest of the question. The idea that Mithos _knew_ and fired anyway, or even fired there _on purpose_ … It’s too much. Mithos would never. He’s almost positive Mithos would never.

(But.)

Mithos hears the question Kratos can’t voice, at least, still mostly in-sync with him even though he has not been Mithos’ driver in years. Mithos’ eyes go wide, and his face pales. If he’s acting, he’s doing a very good job at it.

“I- oh, Kratos. I had _no_ idea,” he says. His voice brims with guilt.

Kratos choses to believe him.

 

\- - -

 

Mithos is in the middle of experiments. Presea doesn’t care.

“Mithos,” she calls, from the doorway. The glow around Mithos starts to fade, and then the glow around the core crystal he’s working with begins fading, too. Presea doesn’t wait a moment longer. “What did you do?” she demands.

Mithos sends a look of raised eyebrows over his shoulder at her before he turns around completely. “You’ll have to be a little more specific than that,” he laughs, light-hearted. She’s one of two people who can interrupt him like this, but Presea isn’t feeling privileged today.

“The cannon,” Presea enunciates, fixing Mithos with her coldest stare. She steps into the room, not close enough to be threatening, but close enough for the height she has over him to feel more apparent. “There is no reason the news that Tethe’alla misfired alone would have made Kratos respond the way he did, so he must know what is _really_ going on. Which means, I assume, you do, too.”

Mithos rolls his eyes. “I don’t know why Kratos is so worried about it,” he says. “What Tethe’alla is saying is true. Their cannon was hacked. Sylvarant probably wanted an excuse to fire, but didn’t want to fire first…”

He trails off, like the rest is clear. It is. But something about it still tastes foul in Presea’s mouth.

“So you did nothing?” Presea asks. It feels like wheedling the truth out of Alicia, back when Alicia was alive and small and would steal desserts when she thought neither her father nor Presea would notice.

Mithos smiles serenely back at her, a bitterness making his lips twitch. “I thought you of all people understood how selfish and greedy humans are, the _lengths_ they’ll go through to get what they want.” His eyes flicker to her chest—the human heart that beats inside it, the scar that runs all the way up to her neck from where they cut her open. Presea feels cold.

“I suppose I do,” she answers.

“Trust me, humans don’t need any help from _me_ to be awful,” Mithos continues, still smiling that too-perfect smile. “They’re that way all on their own.”

He’s better at lying than Alicia ever was. Presea still knows she’s being lied to.

For someone so spiteful of human’s selfish and manipulative nature, Mithos sure has stooped down to their level. The dull green swirl that sits in the center of his sapphire core crystal has never made Presea feel more sick, especially when the sight is framed by a rainbow of faintly pulsing core crystals that line the shelves on the walls behind him.

She turns and stalks out of the room so she doesn’t have to look at it any longer.

 

\- - - 

 

What none of them know.

What none of them see.

Is a single blade with his hand held to the heavens, shielding his family from a cannon blast that should have vaporized them all on the spot.

It shouldn’t have been enough.

It absolutely should not have been enough.

But by some miracle,

The shield

_Holds._

 

\- - -

 

Genis stands next to Presea on a balcony looking over an endless sea of dead grass that’s been painted orange in the twilight hours, the sun behind them, the tower casting a long shadow before them. The wind is strong, this high up. Genis grips the rail tightly as he overlooks it all.

There’s some kind of beauty in the emptiness, he thinks.

“So… why did you join Mithos?” Genis asks, pulling his gaze away from the field to look at the girl standing beside him. Presea does not lean on the rail, but stands perfectly rigid, back straight, eyes forward. She’s a handful of years older than him, but something about the way her skin pulls over her bones is something Genis recognizes well. The marks of a blade who has aged. Blades aren’t meant to age.

Presea considers the question a moment, like she isn’t sure where to start.

“Mithos… he saved me, too,” Presea answers, fingers reaching up to touch the crystal that sits in her neck. It glows a pink that’s a few shades darker than Colette’s, but Genis isn’t sure if its naturally that color or if being a flesh eater has warped it. The brilliant blue streak in it is definitely unnatural, though.

Genis’ core crystal is hidden under his clothes, but if Presea wasn’t right there he’d have his shirt off so he could look at it again. Silvery-blue to begin with, it had been tainted with a murky brown when he’d become a flesh eater, and after Mithos—a splash of sapphire blue like a star sits at its center. The image of it in the mirror is burned in his mind’s eye. He wants to never forget what it looks like.

“I nearly forgot you were a flesh eater, too,” Genis says, conversationally. As if he could forget. For unlucky blades like him and Presea, it marks more than their core crystal. “Couldn’t stand being around your driver, either?” he asks, with a nervous laugh as he bumbles through this attempt at communication, scrambling for common ground.

Presea laughs and shakes her head, like the notion’s absurd to her.

“What? No. I loved Alicia,” she says.

( _Alicia… her precious little sister, even when Alicia outgrew her_.)

“Oh.” Genis blushes with his shame. “Sorry.”

Instead of telling him it’s alright, Presea tells him the truth, a secret only two others know.

“We… Alicia and I, we were tricked,” Presea explains. “We signed up for something we didn’t fully understand the consequences of. And they… They took her from me.” Her hand trails down from her crystal to her chest—where humans keep their hearts—and she clutches at her shirt, knuckles white.

“I’m… I’m so sorry,” Genis tries to say, but Presea isn’t done talking.

“I killed the man I thought responsible,” Presea continues, her voice distant, eyes out on the horizon. “But, sometimes.” Her fingers release, her hand falls to her side. “Sometimes I wonder if it really was his fault. I think he was just taking the blame for someone else. And I- Well, as long as someone was being punished…”

Guilt taints her voice, a heavy burden of regret similar to the kind that sits in Raine’s voice sometimes. Genis can’t fathom ever regretting the death of a human—except Lloyd, maybe, if he died—but he feels the ache of sadness and anger in his bones, the thought of losing someone he cared about to humanity’s greedy hands. A shiver goes up Genis’ spine, and it’s not from the wind’s chill. He grips the railing tighter.

“Raine and I…” he explains, slowly. He feels like he owes it to Presea. “Our drivers… they were _bad_.” Bad doesn’t even begin to cover it, but the last thing Genis wants is to dredge up the horrors of his past here, when the spiral of awful memories could easily send him tipping over the tower’s edge and into the sea of grass below. “And so Raine… killed them.”

( _Raine was not an offensive blade, but she made do. For her little brother, she’d do much worse, if she had to._ )

“We didn’t want to forget each other, though,” Genis continues, throat raw and mouth dry. “So we…”

“I understand,” Presea interrupts.

Genis nearly chokes on his shame and the roiling storm in his stomach.

“For all the pain this has brought me, I am glad they did not steal the memory of Alicia from me, too,” Presea says.

Genis pushes the swirl of awful things out of his mind and grounds himself with his anger. Alicia shouldn’t have been taken to begin with. Humans shouldn’t be allowed blades if they aren’t going to treat them properly. He thinks of Mithos’ promise, and of the world burning.

“If humanity pays, for all that they’ve done,” Genis spits, feverish and sweating. “That will be more than enough.”

“Hmm,” Presea says.

( _She isn’t quite convinced. Not anymore._ )

 

\- - -

 

It’s dark.

There are pinpricks of pain under his skin, pinpricks he recognizes, hates. Zelos bristles. Opens his eyes. It doesn’t help much. He can see his ether lines, bright and orange and harsh on his retinas, but not anything else. Which is impossible, frankly.

He’s dreaming.

Being aware of that doesn’t make the wires hooked into him vanish, though, nor does it stop the phantom memory still very much tangible pain from snapping through his body. Except it snaps and it doesn’t stop, it fills him up and doesn’t let him go. Zelos’ back arches up, slams back down against whatever the hell he’s strapped to. He can’t think clearly enough to get a hold of the dream space. All he knows is pain,

Pain

 _Pain_.

Breathe Zelos, breathe. You’re fine. You’re fine they’re just stealing your power from you and using it to set the world on fire but hey that’s why you exist, right? That’s what you’re good for. At least you’re doing something good, right—

— _good for the country that doesn’t give a damn about you, good for the country you hate, good for no one because your power is killing people who never had to die—_

What happens when the sword is well aware of the things it’s being used for?

The sword is not at fault, but it is still capable of feeling guilt.

_\--you should never have been created--_

Stop stop stop thinking about it, Zelos, it’s fine, you’re fine. Just breathe, _breathe._

If he thinks hard enough about it he can make the pain kind of fade away, but he can’t yank the wires out—he can’t reach them his hands are strapped down— _he shouldn’t have to reach them he should be able to just rip them out with mental energy this is a dream_ —and just as he thinks he’s fine

a bubble of terror and guilt pops over him

it fills his mouth and sinks its claws into his throat, he can’t breathe, and all he knows again is the white noise of pain

\-- _you should never have been born_ \--

_Bang._

Tears burn in Zelos’ eyes, which are open and unseeing. It’s so dark. Everything hurts.

_Bang._

Fuck these stupid cannons. Fuck whoever created them. Fuck whoever created _him_.

_Bang bang CRASH._

The pain stops.

It’s sudden, light shattering into his world, _Architect_ who let the dream sun be so bright. Zelos screws his eyes shut and recoils from it, even as fresh air fills his lungs. He feels cables being ripped out from his skin. Hears the hiss of machinery. Then suddenly he’s lying on grass and it’s like the cannon wasn’t there at all.

There’s someone else here.

That’s weird.

The dream space is… Aegis specific, isn’t it?

A hand on his face, softly brushing displaced hair out of his eyes. The sense of movement, weight settling next to him. A hand under his head. Movement. His head falls back down into someone’s lap. He recognizes it but he doesn’t. The taste of ether is familiar and yet entirely too sharp. Who…?

“It’s alright. No one’s going to let us be used like that ever again.”

Zelos opens his eyes.

Green hair frames green eyes and a face that’s far too sharp to really be called delicate. Martel’s eyes are sad and her voice soft, her smile gentle. She continues playing with his hair, threading her fingers through it. It feels too nice—too comforting—for Zelos to tell her to stop.

But.

“What… are you… doing here?” he asks, having trouble finding his voice for the words.

“Hm,” Martel says. She lifts her eyes from Zelos’ face, looking somewhere out to the distance, to her right. “Things… carry over, sometimes, in dreams,” she explains. Sheena at least would have the tact to sound embarrassed about something like this. Even Seles was never this direct about the fact she could sense Zelos’ feelings. But Martel? She gets straight to the point. “I came because I felt your pain, and I couldn’t in good conscious leave you to it—not _that_ pain. Not ever.”

Her fingers tighten on Zelos’ hair. It’s painful for a moment—the physical pain and the sudden flash of memory that bleeds through their ether link. Darkness illuminated only by dim green ether lines the sensation of walls on every side and pain pain pain pain—

Martel relaxes her grip. Zelos exhales. Blinks against the vision.

Sometimes, he forgets, that the original Aegises had it much worse than he ever did.

_\--but they weren’t CREATED for war, like he and Colette were--_

“Thanks, I guess,” Zelos says, feeling more grateful than his tone suggests. He appreciates it, really. But he hates that he was trapped in this memory—this dream—to begin with, and had to be rescued _again._ It makes him feel useless.

It makes him feel afraid.

He hates feeling afraid.

Martel’s eyes snap back to him. “Are you alright?” she asks, with a shaky kind of gentleness. “I know memories like this aren’t… well…”

“I’m fine,” Zelos lies.

Martel hums like she doesn’t believe him. The blue sky darkens around the edges, colors fading from it. Zelos laughs at the sight, because he guesses it reflects the mood, which the dreamspace tends to. Grey grey grey, the sky sings down at him. Fear, fear fear.

“It’s alright,” Martel whispers, petting his hair again. “Kratos won’t let us be used like that again. Lloyd won’t let us be used like that again.”

Zelos lays, motionless, scowling at the sky behind her head. He feels too heavy to move. The sky remains dark, even at the mention of Lloyd’s name.

“Colette won’t let them take you. _I_ won’t let them take you,” Martel continues. “Seles won’t, and Sheena won’t—there’s so many of us, Zelos. They’d have to get through so many of us just to get you. It won’t happen. Not again.”

_(Her head in Mithos’ lap his fingers running through her hair as he whispered gentle things to her, promises and truths, painting the image of their safety with his words)_

Martel’s words are like a song, pinpricks of light through that grey sky until orange and red leak back into it, like a sunset. Zelos lets himself breathe. He really is safe, here, isn’t he? That awful machine just a distant memory.

And more than being safe.

He’s _free_.

It’s a strange thing, that freedom. Just the thought makes the sun burst through the sky above, the wrong place in the sky but dipped in sunset colors regardless. It’s too bright too look at. He can’t take his eyes away.

“Hey, Martel,” he says. He’s not sure why. Something about this moment just feels so transient. Maybe because it’s a dream. Makes it harder to want to bite everything down and put on a smile for show. “How long does it take…?”

“Hmm? For the nightmares to go away?”

“No, no. To get used to being free.”

“Oh.”

Martel’s eyes go distant. After a second, she turns her head again, to her right, like something over there specifically is calling her.

“Honestly, I couldn’t tell you,” Martel whispers. She sounds so far away. “I was free, until I wasn’t. So when I was again…”

She wasn’t terrified of it, like he is, is how that sentence ends.

Zelos turns his head to the right, wondering what the hell Martel is so fascinated by. He squints at it, confused, though he shouldn’t really be. He knows the nature of dreams. The patchwork sky that becomes like stars as the landscape spreads that direction. But the night painted with stars stitched unevenly against his own impossible sunset isn’t what has him squinting. It’s the buildings, a forest of machinery and glass. He’s never seen anything like it. No wonder Martel’s fascinated.

But then… as turns his head to look at her face again, he thinks it’s something else. Her expression isn’t confused. It’s not the face of a woman caught in wonder and marvel. That expression looks more like…

Longing.

 

\- - -

 

 “So,” Yuan says, sitting down next to Seles at the edge of camp.

Seles looks up at him, a little surprised. “Yeah?” she asks.

“I hear you and Sheena have bets on Zelos and Lloyd…” Yuan begins, sending her a conspiratorial smile. Seles chokes on her laughter, hides it with a hand. “Well?” Yuan presses.

“Betting pool’s a thousand gald,” Seles says. “Sheena thinks Lloyd’s going to say something first, even if it takes him three months, but _she_ wasn’t Zelos’ driver. I _know_ how bad Zelos has got it for Lloyd.” Even if she hadn’t felt it, in those few days before Zelos transferred his driver rights, _watching_ Zelos interact with Lloyd… Seles laughs and shakes her head just thinking about it. “It’ll be like a month, I think, before Zelos’ gay reaches maximum capacity and he _has_ to say something about it.”

Yuan nods along as Seles speaks, then smiles, wide.

“You’re both wrong,” he declares.

Seles raises her eyebrows. “Oh really?” she asks.

Yuan nods. “It’s going to take them five years,” he says, with absolute confidence. Seles scoffs at the idea.

“Yeah? What makes you say that?”

Yuan grimaces a little. “Unfortunately, personal experience.”

Seles looks at him, then she understands, and she bursts out laughing. “No!” she laughs. “No, Architect, tell me it _did not_ take you and Botta five years—”

Yuan just nods, laughing along, though he looks a little miserable.

“Hooooly shit, Yuan!” Seles clasps at her face, delighted and disbelieving in equal measures. “ _Even_ with the emotional bleed? _Five years?_ ”

Yuan nods again, laughing a little less.

“Five years,” Seles repeats. She shakes her head. Yuan sighs.

“Maybe I’m wrong,” he says, “but Lloyd definitely seems like the kind of man who loves loudly without realizing he’s _in_ love for the longest time. And Zelos? He’s too conscious about everything he says and does. _He_ won’t be initiating anything.”

“Hmmm,” Seles hums, as she thinks it over. She can… see where Yuan’s coming from. And hey, if he’s wrong, that’s just an extra thousand gald for her.

“I’m right,” Yuan insists, smug.

“Sure you are,” Seles says.

She laughs softly to herself, then turns her attention towards camp. She can see Colette and Sheena from here—Colette was on dinner duty tonight. Sheena apparently decided to help. Hmm.

“What are your thoughts about Colette and Sheena?” Seles asks Yuan, since she has him here.

Yuan considers the two of them a long moment, stroking at his chin. Then he nods.

“It’s either going to be three years, or one week,” he declares.

Seles laughs in surprise. “One week?” she asks.

Yuan nods again, confident. “Colette doesn’t seem very shy, if you know what I mean,” he says. “So—oh fuck, wait, Martel’s a part of the equation too, isn’t she? Hmmmm…” He drags out this sound of thought, then sighs. “Might take two weeks.”

“You’re joking!”

“Not at all! Like I said, Colette doesn’t seem very shy. It’ll just depend on whether or not she decides now is a good time, or if she’d rather wait until this is all over, and if she decides now’s fine, Martel’s only going to delay that decision by a week,” Yuan says, sounding very certain. “Sheena won’t start anything.”

“Yeah, that, that sounds like Sheena,” Seles admits.

“We betting?” Yuan asks.

“No, because I think you’re absolutely right on this one,” Seles says. She leans over and nudges Yuan. “Can we go back to the fact it took you and Botta five years, _with_ an emotional bleed—”

“ _Listen,_ ” Yuan protests, blushing and voice rising with a flustered anger.

Seles just laughs.

 

\- - -

 

When Martel revealed herself, Kratos was not exactly surprised.

There were things Colette kept doing. Touches too familiar, knowledge too intimate to simply be her own. She looked at him, sometimes, with eyes too sad for a girl who only just met him, and Kratos wondered.

He wondered, then: if Martel was there.

And he wondered, in hindsight: why hadn’t she said anything to him?

When he can catch her alone—as alone as she can be, with Colette constantly present in the back of her mind, anyway—Kratos asks.

 “I’d already taken so much from Colette,” is her answer, sad, brows furrowed and hands clasped on folded knees. “I didn’t want to take any more.”

Kratos sits with his ankles crossed, hands resting on their intersection, a little slouched. He turns and sends a look at his first and oldest friend, at the sister he hasn’t seen in hundreds of years, still disappointed and not quite understanding. “I… don’t think she sees it like that,” he tells Martel, knowing that Martel would not have let this stop her unless she was truly concerned about what Colette thought.

“That’s what makes it worse,” Martel admits, and there’s something tight about her words, something bitter under their surface.

Kratos studies her, carefully, though he cannot quite pin what it is. He supposes he’s out of practice.

“Martel…” he begins.

Martel’s hands open, trembling, then tighten into fists. She straightens her back and rounds on Kratos, her eyes blazing with her anger. “Colette had _nothing_ in her life, absolutely nothing, and she just _expects_ me to keep taking more out of that nothing,” Martel says, words sharp and articulated with a fast-paced fury that she and her brother only get when they’re intensely upset. “I’m—I’m glad to be here, I really am, but I didn’t want to _steal_ her life. And…”

She breaks off, reaching up to trace the fresh scars in her core crystal, expression pinched. It’s a long moment before she speaks again, long enough Kratos wonders—is Colette speaking to her, or is she just mulling things over? Neither her nor Mithos usually need this long to mull, but… sometimes…

“The least Colette deserves is to have someone love her, and to love her for who _she_ is, not because of me,” Martel says, finally, voice quiet. “Lloyd was blissfully ignorant and unaware and for the first time in Colette’s entire life—her _entire life,_ Kratos, and she’s been alive for _decades!_ But for the first time, she felt like she was special. And wanted.” Martel’s anger softens, though her sadness still shapes her words, words she speaks as if the mere thought of them is intensely sacred. “Just for being _her._ Not for being anything or anyone else. I couldn’t take that from her.”

“And so you hid,” Kratos says, understanding, though his core still aches with sadness.

Martel nods. “I’m glad I don’t have to, anymore, because I _missed_ you,” she says, sending Kratos a shaky smile. “But I still—I hate having to share with her. It’s not fair. Not to her.”

“Not to you, either,” Kratos argues, not wanting to hear his sister put herself down so quickly.

Martel just smiles, tight and bitter. She’s silent for a long, long, long moment.

Then she turns to her brother, the anger on her face like a knife she presses to his throat.

“Why didn’t you save them?” she demands.

Kratos blinks, taken aback, knocked off-kilter by the weight of her anger and the fact that _he’s_ the target of it. “What?” he says, not quite following.

“The artificials,” Martel elaborates. “You saved Mithos and myself, after all. And you- you _had_ to have known the artificials existed. You had to have known how they were being used, and I _know_ you weren’t okay with that.”

Kratos turns away, shame creeping up his neck. “I… was tired, Martel,” he answers, though it’s not a good answer.

“They were _suffering_ ,” she spits.

“They weren’t being put in the cannons.”

Martel shakes her head, mouth contorted with her anger. “I think what happened to them was worse,” she says, with a grim, furious certainty.

Kratos doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know how to.

“You could have done something,” Martel accuses, into his silence. “You could have, and you _didn’t_ —”

“I am but one blade, Martel,” Kratos protests.

“That didn’t stop you the first time!” she scoffs.

“Martel.”

She shifts, knees turning and tucking under her, hands pressed into the grass below as she hauls herself forward, puts her face in Kratos’, unspeakable and indescribable despair in her eyes and voice underneath the sharp furrowing of anger in her brow. When she speaks it’s too fast, too tight, too Much, like she cannot possibly hold all she has seen from the depths of Colette’s memories in, and eager to prove a point she gladly lays all that evidence down for Kratos:

“She spent her _whole life_ bending over backwards just to please them, so that maybe, _just maybe_ , they would treat her with an ounce of love, because she could never measure up to the original, to _me,_ in their eyes. And she knew that and she couldn’t change it but she tried to make up for it, anyway, but she never could and they never cared about her.” She’s trembling, with all her rage, and Kratos leans a little back, trying to not get caught up in the wake of it. “She doesn’t think she’s allowed to be loved unconditionally. She gets terrified of stepping out of line. She didn’t even think running was an option, was too scared to try, I had to _fight her_ to get her out of there, Kratos, I—”

“I cannot save every hurting blade, Martel,” he interjects, because she is right to be upset but she is not right to put all that blame on him. “You are being unfair.”

Martel glares at him, but seems to realize herself. She sighs and sits back, hands clutched in her lap, lips still pursed with her anger.

“…maybe I am,” she admits, finally. “I just wished someone had saved her.”

“ _You_ did,” Kratos reminds her.

It doesn’t seem to reassure her. All she does is stare out to the distance, shaking her head.

“Much too late to be of any good, I fear,” she says, bitter and tired.

“A late rescue is better than no rescue at all,” Kratos argues. “All there’s left to do is let her heal.”

Martel takes a deep breath, shoulders slumping like she’s already exhausted by the notion. “There’s so much to heal…” she whispers, almost defeated, and Kratos considers—his sister, and how much she must have seen, must know about Colette. Kratos knows he accidentally dumped much of his own trauma into Martel when their consciousnesses overlapped in the dreamspace ( _though she dumped hers into him in return_ ), but sharing an entire mindspace with someone must be so much more intimate, so much more intrusive. He wonders what it must be like to constantly taste the depths of Colette’s pain and yearning, instead of simply knowing how horrible the world was to her.

It’s really no wonder that it’s breaking Martel so thoroughly she’s struggling to keep her head up.

( _But she will keep her head up. She is Martel. She is incapable of being beaten down, and Kratos knows this._ )

“She can do it,” Kratos says. “After all, we did.”

“I don’t think our wounds were nearly this deep,” Martel counters. “Or at least, mine weren’t.”

( _And she’s right, there. Even Kratos—who was born into pain while Mithos and Martel weren’t—knew at least that what was being done to him was wrong. Martel speaks as if Colette cannot even fathom that notion._ )

“But…” Martel continues, determination rising in her tone. Kratos smiles.

“Time and patience, Martel,” he reminds her. “She’ll get it eventually.”

“You’re right,” Martel says, head held high. “Because I’ll be damned if I don’t do everything I can to make sure of that.”

And once Martel sets her mind to something, it gets done.

 

\- - -

 

It wasn’t Zelos’ fault.

It wasn’t anyone’s fault, really. Things just piled on top of each other until Genis couldn’t take it anymore.

He’d been in pain most of the day—most of the week, to be honest—because that’s what being a flesh eater meant, for him. Constant decay and pain. He was used to it, but that didn’t make it any less exhausting. He was tired of being in pain. He was tired of hurting. And most of all—

( _“Honestly, I’m glad Aegises get to keep their memories. Not remembering? That’s got to be the most awful thing ever.”_ )

—He’s tired of being _angry._ But the anger fills him to the brim as much as the pain does, and no wonder, really. He can’t forget the crimes committed against him. He doesn’t consider that lucky. And maybe he’s just mad because last night he dreamed about a person he’d rather forget, but—

(“ _There are ways for a blade to remember.”_

 _“Yeah, only if they eat someone.”_ )

—the dream left an echo of a voice he wishes he couldn’t remember the shape of ringing in his ears all day. He’s tired of hearing it. He’s tired of it haunting him. He’s tired of things as simple as Lloyd touching him unexpectedly on the shoulder sending him into a panic attack so bad it takes Raine thirty minutes to drag him out of—

(“ _That’s not exactly how it works.”_ )

—and he’s _tired_ that the price of memories he doesn’t even want to keep is constant ridicule and a body that doesn’t function like it’s supposed to anymore. It’s not _fair,_ that blades have to forget, and it’s not _fair,_ that flesh eaters are treated as the scum of the earth for _wanting_ to remember. The system is awful and the world is awful and _Zelos_ —

“It’s still gross,” he says, as if he has any right to.

Raine’s on her feet before Genis can open his mouth. “It’s not _our_ fault this is the only option the system gives us!” she spits. “It’s not _our_ fault everyone hates us for it!”

“And it’s not like all of us asked to be like this!” Genis adds, the words fire and poison on his tongue. He watches Raine wither under the accusation, but he’s too angry to think about how his words hurt her. “You think I _enjoy_ being this way? You think I would have _chosen it,_ if I’d known—”

“I- sorry,” Zelos says, stumbling a little on the apology. He looks surprised. He looks like he regrets it. Regret isn’t good enough for Genis, though. Zelos shouldn’t have opened his dumb mouth to begin with.

“Shut up, just shut up!!” Genis snaps. Anger pounds in his head like a drum.

“Genis…” Raine’s hands find his arm but the last thing he wants right now is to be touched and he doesn’t _care_ , he’s just _angry_ so he pushes her off and races into the night so he can be alone with the storm that roars inside of his chest.

He kind of regrets it immediately—because Raine didn’t _deserve_ that, and he didn’t mean it the way he said it. He doesn’t _like_ being like this but it’s not _her_ fault, it’s _not_. He should go back and apologize, probably, but he’s on fire with his anger and his shame and _everything is burning—_

Everything _is_ burning.

Or at least, it feels like it.

Broken synapses firing incorrectly, nonstop nonstop nonstop, pain flooding all of his senses. Genis wheezes and collapses to his knees, clawing at his throat as he tries to get air into it properly. He hurts all over. His body seizes and throws him flat on his face in the gravel. He can’t move he can’t scream he just has to hope it’ll stop or hope that Raine will come looking for him—but he hasn’t even been gone ten minutes—and that he won’t die before that happens, Architect, no please, don’t let this time be the one, don’t let him—

“Hey,” whispers a voice, gentle.

It still sets off Genis’ fight-or-flight reflexes, regardless. He digs his palms into the gravel until it hurts, trying to push himself up except his body isn’t responding.

“Hold on, I can help,” the voice continues, persistent.

Then there are hands touching him and Genis growls in his throat—the only sound he can manage—because he doesn’t want to be _fucking touched_ but then,

He’s on his back and Mithos’ face comes into view, brow furrowed with worry, smile gentle.

“Hang on, Genis,” Mithos says, and Genis clings to the sound like a lifeline. Watches through blurry vision as Mithos places his hand on his own core crystal.

There’s a blinding flash of sapphire amidst a swirl of other colors. Genis doesn’t see what Mithos does next, but he _feels_ it, a sharp and sudden pain in his core crystal and then it’s not pain just electricity, it’s—

_Ether._

Ether, flooding his veins properly for the first time in ten years.

Genis breathes again.

“There we go. Better?” Mithos asks, with a cautious, excited little laugh that makes Genis forget to breathe for an entirely different reason.

“Y- yeah,” Genis manages to get out, startled, and trying to adjust to the sensation filling his veins. He’d forgotten, what it was like, to be fueled by ether, the way blades are supposed to be.

“Come with me?” Mithos asks, holding out his hand.

And Genis, who feels okay for the first time in as long as he can remember,

Who can still hear Mithos’ echoing promise of a world that’s better to bladekind,

Does.


	4. Chapter 4

“Genis!” Raine calls, hands cupped around her mouth. They have been searching for her brother all night. The sun is nearly rising.

“ _Genis!_ ” she calls again. There’s no response.

(“ _It’s not like all of us asked to be like this!”_ )

He never came back, after he stormed off, earlier. They’ve searched the area immediately around camp very thoroughly, and Yuan and Botta are in town now asking after the missing boy. Maybe they’ll turn something up that Raine and the rest couldn’t. Raine’s heart pounds out an unsteady rhythm in her chest, a rhythm out of sync with the pulse of her ether. For Genis not to come back…

( _“You think I_ enjoy _being this way!?”_ )

It’s hard to breathe. She sinks to her knees in the gravel, anguish bubbling up in her chest. She wants to scream and let it out but her companions are close enough to hear, still, and—

( _“You think I would have_ chosen _it, if I’d known—”_ )

“It’s not your fault,” comes Colette’s voice, gentle. She hovers behind Raine, hand just inches from Raine’s shoulder. (A touch Martel would have given without second thought.)

Raine looks up at her, then looks away. She can’t scream, but she growls instead, anguish turning into anger. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands so she clenches them until her nails dig into the ether lines on her palms. How is it _not_ her fault, that she condemned her little brother to his cursed existence?

“If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine,” Zelos adds, a beat later. He steps forward, though he hangs behind Colette, nonetheless.

( _The rage in her stomach the horror on Genis’ face and how Zelos wouldn’t fucking_ stop—)

“Damn right it is,” Raine spits, pushing herself back to her feet.

Zelos puts his hands up in surrender. He looks like he wants to back away, but he doesn’t. The apologetic grimace on his face is unbearable. It makes the ether in Raine’s veins hot and it makes the blood under her skin boil until she feels almost sick with it.

“I’m really, really sorry,” Zelos says. “If I’d known he was gonna run off—”

“If you’d just shut your _damn mouth_ ,” Raine counters. She lets the anger in her spill out as a punch to Zelos’ face.

He staggers back, one hand reaching up to his mouth. Orange ether particles bleed out between his fingers, dissipate into the air. Looks like she hit hard enough to split his lip. _Good_.

Zelos looks horrified for a moment, but then he blinks, exhales. “Alright, I deserved that,” he says. He holds his hands out to his sides, leaving himself wide open. “Go ahead and do it again, if it’ll make you feel better.” Ether still bleeds from his lip, another source of glowing light in the darkness of the setting sun.

“ _Zelos_ ,” Colette interjects.

Raine nearly does. But that isn’t going to find Genis. So instead she steps forward and grabs Zelos by the collar of his shirt. “You want to make me feel better?” she spits in his face. “ _Then find my little brother._ ”

Zelos laughs, nervously. Raine releases him.

“Hey!” calls Lloyd, waving them over. Raine shoots Zelos one last glare then stalks towards Lloyd. Maybe he has news.

Yuan and Botta are there, but no Genis. Disappointment crashes over Raine before Yuan even opens his mouth.

“No one we asked has seen him,” Yuan relays, looking annoyed, regretful. It’s a better look on him than Zelos. “But maybe we didn’t ask the right people.”

“We asked everyone we saw,” Botta argues, sending a stern look at his fiancé. Then he turns to Raine, apologetic. “I think it’s a dead end. And it’s unlikely he would have gone into town, anyway, knowing him. Most of the population is human.”

He has a point, there, but it’s no less disheartening. Raine inhales, holds the breath in her lungs until she feels like she’ll explode, but that’s the only way she’s keeping herself from screaming or punching Zelos again.

“Look, I’ll go catch up with Sheena and Seles,” Zelos says, hastily. “Maybe they’ve found—”

“I think I have something,” comes Kratos’ voice, from a little way’s off. “Martel?”

“Oh, hold on,” Colette says. The change from Colette to Martel is instantaneous, and then the green-haired woman is hurrying towards Kratos. Raine follows quickly after.

“Here,” Kratos says, when they’re close enough. He’s kneeling in the gravel, fingers pressed to the rocks. “It’s faint, but the residual ether signature in the air…”

( _It’s faint enough now that most blades wouldn’t even be able to sense it anymore. But Kratos would know this ether signature anywhere_. _Echoes of it are written forever in his veins._ )

“Oh,” Martel says, kneeling next to Kratos. “That’s…” she trails off, looking much too startled to finish.

“It has to be,” Kratos insists.

“What?” Raine asks, impatient. “What is it?” She can’t sense anything.

“Mithos…” Martel whispers.

Raine feels suddenly and very thoroughly cold. ( _The sensation comes back to her—Mithos’ sword crashing against her ether shield, dangerously close to breaking it and cutting her clean in two. She was only protecting Zelos, who was on the ground, who Mithos seemed particularly interested in. The image of Mithos’ mad grin illuminated by a rainbow light from the crystal in his collarbone won’t leave her mind._ )

“Do you think he found Genis?” Lloyd asks.

That’s exactly what Raine is afraid of.

“It would not be a stretch of logic,” Kratos answers. “I cannot imagine Genis going far on his own, and we have not found him anywhere nearby.”

“And so, what?” Yuan says, sharp. “Mithos took Genis away? What would that brat want with him?”

“For some kind of experiment?” Zelos suggests. Raine turns and shoots him a look like death. He hastily puts up his hands again. “Sorry, sorry, I’ll shut up!”

“Unlikely, though,” Kratos argues. “He’s been doing experiments on _blades,_ not flesh eaters. I do not think he will harm Genis.”

“They… certainly are on the same page about a lot of things, too,” Martel adds, with a careful wonder that makes Raine wonder if it’s really her speaking, or Colette, even if they haven’t changed fronts. “Maybe Mithos is just looking for someone else to be on his side.” Martel’s expression turns sad. Raine still feels like she can’t breathe.

“But why would Genis go with him?” she demands, like she doesn’t already know. (“ _Maybe… Mithos was right”—_ she can remember the softness that cradled Genis’ words, softness that came from much more than agreeing with someone’s beliefs.)

“We are not far now, from where Mithos is living,” Kratos says. “It is still a three or four days journey, perhaps longer, since we cannot take the main path, but… I suppose we can ask, then.”

Raine tries to breathe.

Her little brother is safe, probably.

But that isn’t as much of a comfort as it should be, because if Genis is with Mithos…

Martel meets her gaze. The other woman’s eyes are filled with sorrow, with understanding.

The threat of having to face their little brothers in battle looms over both their heads, now.

 

\- - -

 

Somehow, for some reason, Botta is left alone with Kratos and Martel in camp.

Truthfully, it’s a strange feeling, being alone with those Yuan considered family four hundred years ago. Botta finds himself watching them rather than speaking to them. There’s a kind of dance they move with, as they set up camp, sort and repack old supplies. Kratos is chattier, around Martel. She’s smiling the whole time. It’s a rhythm that could easily make Botta mistake them for blade and driver, though he knows they haven’t been that for hundreds of years. He wonders if it has something to do with being family.

He wonders how Yuan would fit into these patterns, if it were just the three of them and Botta was invisible. He wonders many things about the lifetimes Yuan has lived before.

Not necessarily out of jealousy. More out of pure, honest, curiosity. Yuan is a fascinating man. The more Botta learns about him, the more he finds to love. He wants to know as much about Yuan as he can, wants to love every inch of him, even the inches he hasn’t discovered yet.

“Botta?” comes Martel’s voice, bright and almost songlike. Laughter seems to be permanently burned into her eyes. “You look like you’ve got a lot on your mind. Gald for your thoughts?”

Botta chuckles and straightens, patting his hands against his knees. He’s sitting not too far from where Kratos and Martel are still sorting supplies and repacking bags.

“Thinking about Yuan,” Botta says, with little shame.

Martel laughs and blushes a little, like she understands. ( _But of course she does_. _And_ that’s _none of Botta’s business._ )

“Anything specific?” Kratos asks. Then his eyebrows quirk upward, his mouth twitching towards a smile. “Or are we better off not knowing?”

Martel laughs again and it’s sharp and loud, a hand hastily clapped over her mouth, though she shakes with the effort of stifling the laughter. Kratos doesn’t laugh, but he does smile so wide he could almost be grinning. It’s like looking into a window to the past, Botta thinks. Kratos rarely smiles so easily anymore, but something about Yuan—something about falling into old patterns, old friendships—makes Kratos relax. And though Martel is very good at hiding the guilt in her chest and the weight on her shoulders, this laughter right now contains none of it, just delight.

Botta smiles as well, but he shakes his head.

“Nothing of that sort,” he informs Kratos, heat in his cheeks. (Nothing of that sort at the precise moment, anyway.) He pats his knees twice, searching for the words to explain what’s really been on his mind, to ask the question he wants to ask. “I suppose I’ve just been… thinking about the kind of man Yuan used to be.”

Kratos and Martel exchange looks.

“Well, lucky for you, we know a lot about that,” Martel jokes, like she doesn’t know that’s the exact reason why Botta’s asking. “Anything specific you wanted to know?”

Botta shrugs. “Anything? Everything?”

Martel nods. She and Kratos think about it for a moment. Kratos speaks first.

“Bravest blade I ever knew,” he says.

“Very kind,” Martel follows up, a half-beat later. “Not the… _kindest,_ but. He had a good heart.”

“And a short temper,” Kratos adds.

Botta laughs, very familiar with all these things.

“Very loving,” Martel continues.

“Would stick with you until the very end,” Kratos agrees, with a nod.

“A… little over the top, sometimes,” Martel says.

“And stubborn,” Kratos says. “ _Very_ stubborn.”

Botta laughs some more, light and short. He nods, more to himself than anyone else.

“So… he hasn’t changed, not really,” he says.

Kratos and Martel look at each other, and then without hesitation say in unison:

“He’s happier.”

Botta blinks, somehow surprised by the notion.

“It is true that you didn’t awaken him during a time of active war,” Kratos elaborates. “But I do not think that is the only contributing factor.” His eyes settle on Botta, sincerity etched within them. Sincerity, and gratefulness.

Martel smiles, gently. “You’ve been very good to him, Botta.”

Botta blushes and scratches at the back of his head, averting his gaze. It feels strange, to be suddenly so aware of the weight of Yuan’s happiness.

“I didn’t think I was doing anything special,” Botta admits, softly.

“Trust me, for a human driver to put their blade above all else? That’s _very_ special,” Kratos says.

“Just seems like common sense,” Botta mumbles.

When Martel smiles this time, it’s sad. “If only the rest of humanity could be as kind as you.”

And it’s that sad smile, more than anything else, that makes Botta really appreciate the weight of how awful the blade system is. He already knew, of course, the cruel and thoughtless ways humans have used blades for their own gain—living a constant defiant refusal of doing the same attracts a lot of ridicule, in truth—but there’s nothing quite like watching the Aegis smile as if she’s given up on humanity, even as she journeys to protect them from the boy that would gladly see them burn.

Lloyd says he wants to find a way to make life better for blades, after they deal with Mithos.

Botta thinks with absolute certainty he wants to do everything he can to help.

 

\- - -

 

 “Corrine, please, can’t you just walk for once,” Sheena is saying.

“No!!” Corrine protests. “My tiny little legs can’t keep up with all of you guys!!”

Lloyd snorts into his hand. He’s walking next to Sheena, as their party makes their way across the country. Most of this journey has been walking, to be honest, but there’s no easier way to get around when you’re wanted criminals in both countries.

Sheena groans, but Lloyd thinks it’s good natured. “My neck hurts from how I slept last night, and you’re making it worse!”

“Fiiiine, I’ll ride on Lloyd, then!”

“What,” Lloyd says, but Corrine’s already hopped onto his shoulder.

Once he’s over the initial surprise, Lloyd laughs. He reaches up to pet them, and they lean excitedly into his touch. After a moment of scratching at Corrine’s fur, Lloyd’s fingers slow, as he realizes something.

“Oh,” he says. “You don’t have a core crystal?”

( _“You… don’t have a core crystal…?” Sheena notes more than she asks, looking at the blade that’s being offered to her. Core crystals are pretty uniform in their placement, even in blades shaped like animals. They always go on the chest, or near it. Corrine doesn’t have one. Not there, not anywhere on their tiny body._

_They don’t reply with words—it’s a little while before she learns they can talk, actually—instead making a hissing noise as they recoil from her hand. Sheena pulls her hand back, heart jumping to her throat. She’s so nervous. This has to work. She can’t be the Aegis’ guard if she doesn’t have a “proper” weapon, and for failures like her, this artificial blade is her only option._

_“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Sheena says quickly. She reaches out again, but more cautiously, holding her hand there for Corrine to come to, rather than trying to touch them outright. She can’t blame them. She’s read the reports behind the early prototypes, the_ really _early prototypes. Corrine’s the last one of them left. The rest have been killed through misuse and neglect._

_They may be artificial, sub-class to regular blades, bred in a lab…_

_But they’re still intelligent creatures. It makes Sheena angry that they’ve been treated like this._ )

“Don’t need a core crystal if I’m not going to be resonating with anybody,” Corrine says, sounding kind of smug.

“Guess that’s true…” Lloyd says. He hadn’t thought of it like that. He hadn’t thought nearly enough about Corrine, to be honest. “How… does that work, anyway?” he asks, looking to Sheena. “Being a blade and driver, without the resonance.”

Sheena’s cheeks are tinged pink as she shrugs, head ducked down.

“I dunno,” she says. “It’s just, like… Corrine can’t pass any ether to _me,_ but I can still channel their power through my cards, using the cards as a conduit instead of myself.” She gains a little more confidence as she explains, comfortable enough to start working at that knot in her neck as they move. “I guess it’s not really that different from Colette’s or Zelos’ swords.”

“There’s just no ether link tying you to Corrine,” Lloyd adds, partly a question, mostly just saying it aloud as he works through it. “And no emotional bleed, either.” He lets his hand fall away from Corrine—they remain perched on his shoulder just fine. “Is it difficult?”

Sheena shakes her head. “Not really? I suppose it probably takes some more communication, but it’s not like regular drivers don’t need to communicate with their blades at all. Unless ether links let you read each other’s thoughts and no one told me about that.”

Lloyd laughs, strongly enough he almost displaces Corrine. They shout in protest, and Lloyd shakes his head—he can’t shake it quite as far, when Corrine’s sitting where they are—still grinning.

“No, we can’t do that,” he tells Sheena. “I think it makes it a little easier to guess what the other’s thinking—or the emotional bleed does, at least—but…” He pauses and shrugs with his free shoulder. “Half the time I swear I don’t know what’s going on in Zelos’ mind still.”

“He’s like that,” Sheena laughs, eyes glinting.

They both set their attention on Zelos, who walks in pace with Colette, not too far ahead. They’ve been spending a lot of time together, though Lloyd can’t say he’s surprised. He felt the same things they did, when their ether links met. He can’t blame them for wanting to relish in the sensation of being whole again, can’t blame them for wanting to learn all they can about their other half.

But that’s not what Lloyd and Sheena are talking about. Lloyd starts to shake his head to clear it before he remembers Corrine.

“Anyway, this is neat!” Lloyd says, turning to send a bright smile at Sheena. “Honestly, I never would have guessed that Corrine wasn’t a regular blade if you hadn’t told me. You two work _really_ well together!”

“Of course we do! And we worked hard at it! No shortcuts, no resonance, just the power of a promise and the strength of our friendship!” Sheena comes to a stop and puts her hands on her hips, her voice smug and smile angry. “So what, I can’t _feel_ when Corrine’s low on ether. I shouldn’t have to! Drivers who rely on that alone are irresponsible, if you ask me. You have to watch your blade, _listen_ to them. That’s what’s really important!”

“Sheena’s very good at listening, too!” Corrine chirps. “That’s why I like her! She never tries to use too much of my power at once!”

Lloyd comes to a stop, too—they’re at the back of the party, so they won’t hold anyone up—stopping so he’s a little in front of Sheena, now. Sheena’s attention is on Corrine, though, her gaze soft.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she tells them. “And- that’s not true…” Her smile grows sad, brow furrowed with guilt. “I’ve definitely pushed you too far before.”

“We were still getting the hang of things at the start!” Corrine counters, with endless patience.

Sheena isn’t put at ease.

“But what about—”

( _She knew, she really did, that Corrine was at the end of their strength and that’s what hurts the most, is that she knew and chose to ignore it. But she wasn’t going to walk away from here without finishing her mission, so she pushed them just a little further. If she could kill the Aegis girl—_

_An explosion of ether, back-firing in her face and knocking her off her feet. A sword is at her neck before the smoke clears._

_“It’s over,” Kratos says._

_Sheena tries to breathe around the fear and frustration that grip her throat. Her heart is pounding. The fact she failed and maybe is about to die doesn’t ring as strongly in her head as the sensation of what happened. It’s only happened once before._

_“Corrine,” she gasps, taking her eyes off her would-be-killer and turning her head to where they were standing—now they’re collapsed on the ground, no no no no—_

_She takes one look at Kratos to judge his intentions, then decides she doesn’t care. If she doesn’t move, it’ll be just as bad for Corrine as if she’s killed._

_She rolls away from the sword and scrambles over to Corrine, scooping them up in her arms._

_“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she pleads with them. They’re still breathing. Good._ Good _._

 _Not caring anymore about her target or her mission, Sheena flees without looking back._ )

“It’s fine, Sheena,” Corrine says, sharp and a little fond. They shift their weight on Lloyd’s shoulder, and then hop towards Sheena. Even without any kind of resonance between them, she knows it’s coming, and holds out her hands to catch them. “I should have told you it was too much,” Corrine continues, apologetic, from their new perch on Sheena’s palms. “But I wanted to help you. I… I didn’t want Zelos to be replaced, either.”

“Oh, Corrine…”

Sheena leans in, and Corrine bumps their head against hers.

“Wow,” Lloyd says, as he watches.

Sheena bristles.

“What?” she snaps. “Look, I’m sorry, about Colette, but—”

“No, no,” Lloyd quickly interjects. “It’s just… It’s amazing. The two of you.” He’s not quite sure how to describe the realization that’s begun to burn inside his chest, but he owes it to Sheena to try, so he picks the first words that come to mind: “The power of a promise, the strength of your friendship,” he says, borrowing her words. “Those things are much more important than resonance, huh?”

“That’s what I’ve been saying!!” Sheena says, sounding frustrated—but not at Lloyd, just with her passion for the topic—“All resonance does is tie blades to people they might not even want to be with. Blades should have a _choice,_ but- but Corrine’s the only blade who gets a choice like that.”

( _Those that created Corrine, that created Zelos… they didn’t care too much about resonance, when they started creating artificial blades. So long as ether could be passed to a weapon, what did it matter?_

_But then they realized: blades not tied to a driver through resonance were free._

_And they sure as hell weren’t going to create an Aegis with freedom._ )

“If only we could fix that,” Lloyd says, quiet. It’s a wistful thought.

Sheena laughs, bitter. “Yeah, well, when you figure out a way to completely rewrite the laws of this world, let me know,” she says.

“Maybe… the Architect?” Lloyd suggests. Martel speaks sometimes, like the Architect actually exists. If he does… “We could try and ask him, once we’ve dealt with Mithos. Maybe he can fix things.”

Sheena’s expression goes sour, as Corrine hops back onto her shoulder.

“The Architect shouldn’t have built a world like this to begin with,” she snaps, and starts walking again.

 

\- - -

 

When Seles approaches him and he’s crying uncontrollably, what Lloyd expects to hear _isn’t_ a soft, unsurprised:

“Oh.”

Lloyd scrubs pointlessly at his eyes and looks up at her. She smiles a kind of bitter smile, and sits down next to him.

“Sorry,” Lloyd apologizes, feeling really silly. “I don’t know why I’m…?”

“It’s Zelos,” Seles explains. “He’s really good at hiding it, but…”

( _Sheena’s hand on her shoulder, confusion roaring against the intrusive despair in her chest, as Seles looked up at her and tried to understand the shape of Sheena’s mouth as she asked what was wrong, why was she crying._

_A shake of her head, when she understood the question. “No, it’s not me,” she told Sheena, while hiccupping on the tears. “I just can’t make it stop.”_

_The look of horror on Sheena’s face when she understood what that meant—for Seles, for_ Zelos _, and all the weight he really did shoulder despite his blasé attitude—was the moment when Seles decided Sheena might not be so bad, after all._ )

“But?” Lloyd prompts, wiping at his eyes again. He doesn’t know why he bothers. The tears fill them up again just seconds later.

Seles takes a moment, like she’s choosing her words. “He… Well, I guess I should say he’s good at hiding it precisely because he _can_ do this,” Seles says. “Pushes all the bad things onto us, so he doesn’t have to deal with them.”

“Wow,” Lloyd says. He’s pretty fond of Zelos, but this is… a jerk move, to say the least.

“In his defense, he couldn’t really break down crying when he was on stage with a million eyes on him,” Seles counters, with a sigh and that bitter smile. “But, yeah, still kind of a jerk move. Dunno what’s bothering him right now, but…” She scans the camp, finds Zelos next to Kratos. “Give him a minute, looks like he’s figuring it out.”

Lloyd nods. Goes to wipe at his eyes again before he remembers it’s pointless. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll let him sort things out. Thanks for, uh, explaining?”

Seles smiles, gets to her feet. “Hey, someone’s gotta tell you how to take care of him.”

And then she’s gone.

 

\- - -

 

Yuan sits on his bedroll in the early hours of morning, flipping idly through his journal. The only other two people awake right now are Colette and Zelos, and they’re off a little ways from camp, sparring. Or they were, the last Yuan checked. He’s been very engrossed in his journal, so he hasn’t been paying much attention to them, the clash of swords and quiet bubble of conversation serving as distant background noise.

Yuan runs his thumb down the edge of a page, smiling fondly at Kratos’ bold, careful lettering. The whole page is a letter from Kratos, something Yuan’s read a million times over by now. Kratos is much more sentimental in writing than in practice, Yuan’s re-learned, probably because in writing Kratos has a lot more time to sort through all the things he wants to say and finds what he feels are the perfect words. He wonders how long Kratos spent writing this letter. He wonders if he was annoyed at the time. He wishes he’d written that down.

( _There are so many things, so many little things, that he didn’t capture, so many things that he didn’t think important enough._ )

It’s interesting, Yuan thinks, to look back through all the things in his journal about Kratos and Martel, all the things they’ve written, all the things he wrote about them. It’s interesting, to compare who they used to be, to who they are now.

In a lot of ways, they’ve changed.

And it’s sad, strange. To see that change as both an outsider and a member of the family.

So much of Kratos’ light has vanished, wearied by exhaustion and grief, but not _all_ of Kratos’ light has gone out. He still moves towards change, a constant, unstoppable force. That’s the same. But Yuan misses knowing the ways to drag Kratos out of his shell and make him smile. He regrets not getting the chance to be around to watch Kratos fall in love, have a son… 

He wonders what kind of woman it was, that Kratos fell in love with. Kratos won’t talk much about her.

Yuan hums, soft. He flips a few pages forward, resolving to ask Kratos one of these days.

He ends up flipping to another familiar page—either by habit or just the creases in the journal’s bindings bringing him to a page he’s often visited before. Just months prior, it usually elicited a fond if confused burst of laughter from him. This time all he feels is bitterness.

The page is blank except four words. “Fuck you, signed Mithos.” The sight makes Yuan’s mouth curl. He’s pretty sure Mithos was joking when he wrote it. He still can’t fathom ever being close enough to that boy to appreciate such a gesture—can’t fathom being close to that boy at all.

( _Cutting words mad eyes the only thing he did was threaten Martel insult Botta attack Kratos—_ )

Botta stirs, beside Yuan. Yuan tries to push down the semi-murderous feelings in his stomach.

This isn’t Mithos’ only mark on Yuan’s journal, though it was the only one Yuan was aware of for ten years. Yuan’s journal is covered in doodles, everything from birds to flowers to horses to crude but cute facsimiles of the four of them. Mithos’ handiwork, he learned, only when Martel told him it was. He’s not sure how he feels about it, now. The thought elicits such a strange feeling in Yuan’s stomach.

That boy… imagining him _doodling._ A boy so cruel and rough at the edges and completely mad? It’s hard to imagine. It’s impossible, frankly. So is imaging holding any fondness at all for the boy, though Yuan knows both Kratos and Martel still do.

He feels strange. Left out. Not feeling the weight Kratos and Martel do, about the war they are walking towards. They both fret about facing their brother, their friend, but Yuan feels no such thing. Mithos does not feel like a part of his family. How can he?

Thinking such things makes Yuan feel a little bit like he’s letting _someone_ down, but even if Kratos and Martel are saddened by his attitude towards Mithos, he refuses to mind. Mithos is a brat and a madman who deserves at the least a good punch to the face.

Tired of looking at the boy’s handwriting, Yuan flips randomly to another page.

This one is covered in Martel’s loopy, slightly sloppy handwriting. He knows this section of the journal. Not that the journal is really split into sections other than by time, but there is a pretty distinct section of nothing but endless gushing about Martel, punctuated by love letters written by the both of them. He hasn’t read them in a long time, embarrassed by their very existence. It’s very uncomfortable, really, to read letters of love written by a man he used to be but can’t remember being, for a woman he cannot remember loving.

( _Sometimes, he can see it, in the way she moves and talks, the shape of her hands moving when she speaks, that stubborn spark in her eyes—He could see how he could fall in love, with someone like that._ )

Yuan’s somewhat comforted by the notion that he’s written at least as much if not more about Botta in the same journal. He tries not to think about another Yuan regarding the same writings with similar embarrassment, but then—

His hand reaches up to touch his core crystal, split in half as it is now. The other half is in Botta’s chest.

He’s… probably not going to have another driver after this, is he?

And _that_ thought makes him smile.

He almost puts the journal away, tired of looking over things of the past, but something stops him. The pages blow in the wind, just enough to turn one forward, and land on a page he hasn’t looked at for a long time. It’s his own cramped handwriting, filling barely a quarter of the page, which is what catches his attention—usually he doesn’t waste the paper like that. Curiously, he reads.

_Martel spoke to me today of her past, before she came to this planet, before she was forced to be a weapon in humanity’s war. Her words were wistful. Distant. Whispers of paradise, aching most of all for a home she’d been taken away from._

_Martel gets distant, far away, a lot of the time. When she remembers—or tries not to remember—the war. But never has she been more distant than when she spoke of the place that had once been her home._

The words send a chill down Yuan’s spine. He shivers. Squints at the page. Of all things he thought he would want to remember… why this?

It makes him reexamine something he thought he understood about Martel. He’s used to seeing her distant, distracted looks. Previously, he’d just assumed it’d been the result of conversations with Colette that none of the rest of them were privy to.

But maybe it’s something else.

He forgets, sometimes, the weight that sits on her shoulders, even after all these years.

It’s easy, when he’s not her blade anymore.

 

\- - -

 

Things are _bad_. Really, _really_ bad. The Sylvaranti army really wants their Aegis, and the last thing Lloyd wants to do is hand her over.

But it’s just the two of them, and he’s not familiar with the full of her power, and they’re surrounded and have been fighting for—Lloyd isn’t sure how long. Just that it’s been a long time. He’s exhausted and he’s hurt and there seems to be no end to this. Colette’s sword barely glows in his hands. She’s hurt, too, pink ether particles rising from cuts in her skin, and low on ether besides. Or maybe she’s low on the will to fight back. He isn’t sure which one.

Honestly, Colette isn’t sure either.

She’s tired she’s never fought in a serious battle before—she’s just for show and the cannon but the cannon doesn’t _work_ —but more than that there’s something. _Pulling_. In her. Something screaming that this is wrong wrong wrong wrong.

She’s not sure what the voice is. It’s not Martel. Martel hasn’t spoken since they died and were reborn as Lloyd’s blade, Martel is distant enough Colette would think her a dream if she couldn’t look down at the sight that is their shared core crystal.

Lloyd is on his knees, beaten and bloody and she has to get him _help_ and—

The Sylvaranti captain steps forward. She is a commanding presence, fully clad in armor, a single whip made mostly of blue fire held ready in one hand. Her blade holds the other whip. If two dozen armed guards didn’t already surround them, Colette and Lloyd would be trapped by the wall of blue flames on the other side.

“It’s time to go back home,” the captain says, voice sharp.

“That is _not_ my home,” Colette protests, tears burning in her eyes and fear gripping her throat. She cannot find the words for it, but something in her roars with certainty that a cage masked by luxuries is still a cage.

The captain scoffs, shakes her head. With a flick of her free hand, the troops with her take a step forward. “You have no say in the matter,” the captain says, clearly. “And regardless—you _want_ to come back, don’t you?”

“I- I choose- my _own_ path,” Colette spits out through clenched teeth. The ether in her core flows so quickly she thinks it’s going to make her sick.

The worst thing is, something in her—it _does_ want to go back. Running is stupid and it will never succeed so what’s the point, that something says. Go back go back go back, it tells her, a tick tock tick in her veins that she finds it hard to ignore. _Go home go home go home_ it roars in her ears.

The captain does not hold out her hand, or anything, but she waits. Colette…

Colette takes

A step forward

(tock tick tock tick)

Maybe she really should just go back.

“Colette, no!” Lloyd shouts. The flare of anger and despair that spikes in Colette’s chest is enough to make her trembling feet catch, stop. “They _aren’t_ taking you back. I won’t let them!”

The captain smirks, raises her eyebrows.

“And who are you, _boy_ , to stop that from happening?” she demands, voice crisp.

Lloyd laughs. Pushes himself to his feet, wiping the blood from his mouth so he can speak. He still staggers, and Colette can _feel_ the exhaustion in his bones. But he stands tall and proud and he declares:

“My name is Lloyd Irving. You and every superior you have better remember that name. Because Lloyd Irving is _Colette’s_ driver, and you’ll only be taking her over _my dead body_!”

(In the distance, Kratos’ heart stops. He lowers his hand and hastily dispels the ether he’d been gathering, ether that he would have used to kill his son—)

The Sylvaranti captain tilts her head back.

“That can be arranged,” she says.

“Heh,” Lloyd laughs, with all the confidence of a boy who does not care if he makes it as much as he cares about giving it his all. “Just try it,” he says, drawing his dual swords because Colette’s sword has gone dim.

(tock tick tock)

The captain cracks her whip.

“No,” Colette whispers. She feels frozen in place.

“ _No!_ ” roars another voice, distant, deeper.

There’s a rain of light that crashes down on the gathered troops, and in its flurry a man lands between his son and the oncoming army. His sword is raised and his eyes cold, knuckles white and clinging desperately to the thing he lost once and refuses to lose again.

( _Lloyd is alive, and Kratos feels like a fool_.)

“Who are you?!” Lloyd calls, daring to sound _offended_ he’s being saved.

“Questions later,” Kratos snaps, because now isn’t the time to answer and he’s not sure how he’s going to answer anyway. “I intend to keep you safe. That is all you need to know.”

“Lloyd, trust him,” Colette says without thinking.

Or rather, something _through_ her says. Martel is not really awake, but some of her memories and feelings still filter through to Colette, and so Colette recognizes the man standing before her, the glow of his sword, the depth of his voice. She recognizes him and she trusts him, feeling somehow safer now than she’s ever felt before.

(“ _My name is Kratos Aurion, and you will be taking them over my dead body!”_ )

(tick tick tick stop)

 

\- - -

 

A figure blocks their path through the mines.

The mines are the quickest route through Toize mountains, the mountains themselves too steep to climb, and going around would have added weeks to their journey. It’s lucky that the mines haven’t been in use for a few years, because otherwise smuggling two stolen Aegises through them would have been impossible.

The caves are illuminated naturally by deposits of glowing ether crystals embedded in the walls. The ether deposits are uniformly a deep purple, providing just enough light to navigate when combined with the glow of the blades’ ether lines. The ether concentration here is dense, as well. Hours in here would surely poison the human members of their party.

Which is why the figure blocking their path is something of a problem.

He stands, back perfectly straight, but rocking back and forth on his heels with anticipation. His sword is held loosely in his right hand—a beautiful sword of glistening ivory, a bar of light circulating through pastel echoes of the rainbow down its center. His core crystal casts a lightshow of rainbow upon his face and the ceiling above him, a pattern like stained glass. His ether lines glow pure, blinding white.

It takes them a moment to recognize him.

Kratos starts to step forward, but Martel puts out a hand to hold him back. Ether thrumming nervously, she steps forward instead, nervous to see him, horrified to see him like _this_.

“Mithos…” she whispers.

“Martel,” he says, in return.

His smile is a little too wide. It doesn’t make her skin crawl nearly as much as the sight of his core crystal. The rainbow lights seem to draw her in. She takes a step closer. Reaches a hesitant hand out, though she isn’t nearly close enough to touch.

“What… did you _do_?” Martel gasps around empty lungs, all the wind cleanly knocked out of her.

Mithos spreads out his arms. Something manic burns in his eyes.

“What I said I’d do,” he calls, voice echoing in the cavern. “I’m creating a world where blades can be _free_.”

“But this—” Martel begins.

His eyes narrow.

“I didn’t ask _you_.”

Martel puts a hand to her mouth and steps back, a ringing in her ears. She should say something. She doesn’t know what to say. Colette reaches out to her, gentle, trying to encourage Martel like Martel once encouraged her. Lloyd grimaces under the weight of the feedback, his own stomach clenching with Martel’s uncertainty. Zelos wilts completely, stepping further towards the back of the group as if physical distance could separate him from the emotional bleed.

Mithos drops his arms, tip of his sword grazing against the ground below. His eyes dart over the group before him, calculating. It seems he sees something he likes. Laughing, he runs forward.

Faster than anyone can move, faster than anyone can _blink,_ he flashsteps once, twice, and then he’s on the other side of their group. He swings his sword down, and an eruption of pure ether connects with one of the pillars holding the ceiling up.

The cave collapses.

When the dust settles, Zelos has the misfortune of finding himself alone with Mithos, everyone else on the other side of the rubble.

The pulse of Zelos’ ether hiccups, fear clutching at his throat. He refuses to show it, though, plastering an angry smile on his lips. Mithos is just a kid, right? The only self-sufficient blade in existence, maybe, and also a real genuine Aegis who wants to destroy all of humanity but. He’s just a brat. Martel’s little brother.

( _Worry and anxiety—and frustration??—bleed into Zelos across the emotional link tying him to his driver and his sister Aegis, but honestly it just mixes with his fear in a volatile concoction._ )

“Here we are,” Mithos says in sing-song, chin up and shoulders back. His eyes gleam as much as his core crystal.

The concoction in Zelos’ stomach boils over, and in a flare of orange his sword solidifies into his hand.

“What the hell do you want!?” he spits.

Mithos’ smile is gentle, somehow. “You have something I need, Zelos, that’s all,” he coos.

And he runs forward.

Brilliant orange comes up to block a kaleidoscope of rainbow. The impact sends something jarring to Zelos’ very core. He yelps and stumbles back. His arms wobble in protest. He barely gets his sword up to block the second blow, and even then, it doesn’t matter.

Mithos easily tosses Zelos into the wall.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Zelos hisses, as he pushes himself back to his feet. That fucking _hurt,_ and he’s not really any good at this. Yeah, he’s getting better, but he’s alone and that scares him and he _hates_ that he’s scared and that he doesn’t know what to do. He falls back onto something he’s a little better at. “Look, what is it you want?” he tries, because sweet-talk used to get him anywhere. “You don’t have to beat me up for it!” Words accompanied with a laugh, trying to make a joke, trying put Mithos at ease— _as if Mithos needed to be put at ease_.

The offer does make Mithos hesitate before rushing again, though his feet are still poised to lunge at a moment’s notice. He moves with the same quiet, deadly grace that Kratos does, his entire body a weapon.

“Really?” Mithos asks, and he laughs, somewhere between scoffing and sounding… legitimately delighted. It makes Zelos’ skin crawl. “You’ll just hand over your core crystal willingly, then?”

“Ah,” Zelos says, because,

 _No,_ he thinks. He wouldn’t, actually. And the thought surprises him, because up until recently he might have answered with _alright sure take it what do I care_ but he’s distinctly NOT feeling even an inkling of that right now, and that’s kind of terrifying.

As is the prospect of having it taken from him at all.

Zelos laughs, high-pitched and nervous, fumbling for a response, while Mithos watches him with those wide, unblinking eyes.

The pile of rubble blocking them off from the rest of the group explodes in light and fire. Genis stands on the other side, ether still gathered in a high concentration around him. Sheena pushes past him and runs to Zelos. Corrine is nowhere in sight.

“Hey, are you okay?” Sheena asks, hand pressed to Zelos’ back.

“Yeah, fine,” Zelos answers, a little distracted. He’s not _hurt,_ and his terror is ebbing away into relief now that she’s here, though relief becomes distress as he realizes Raine is the only other person here—everyone else still separated by another pile of rubble—and that Sheena is _without her blade._

He opens his mouth but doesn’t have the time.

Mithos leaps at them again.

Zelos and Sheena jump opposite directions. Mithos’ sword slams down in between them, slicing into the ground and sending tremors through the cavern. Zelos stumbles. Sheena cries out. Mithos spins around and kicks Zelos in the stomach.

Zelos hits the wall again, a protruding ether crystal slamming into his back. He curses and falls to his knees, winded, choking on the sensation of pain that climbs up his spine. Mithos steps forward, then again, raising his sword of rainbow light high—

Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ , Zelos thinks. He can’t move fast enough to get his sword up to block. He can’t—

Indigo fills his vision, haloing the image of Raine’s back. Raine hisses as Mithos’ sword connects with her ether shield. Relief and surprise bubble up in Zelos’ chest, war with a sensation of fear that overwhelms them. It doesn’t look like Raine’s going to hold that for long.

“Mithos!” Genis calls. “What are you trying to _do_!?”

“Already told you!” Mithos replies, light and laughing. His grin could split his face in two. His sword seems about ready to do the same to Raine’s shield. “I’m creating a world where blades won’t need drivers, anymore. You understand that, don’t you, Genis? Raine?” There’s a kind of gentleness that shapes his words, belied by the madness in his eyes, and how he pushes all his weight into trying to crack Raine’s shield. His voice rises a little closer to manic as he continues: “I just want to set blades _free_!”

Mithos speaks with a feverish hope that Zelos finds familiar. (A furious, quiet insistence, determination burning in red eyes—“ _I don’t just want to stop Mithos, I want to make the world BETTER!_ ”) Despite Mithos’ clear madness and the fact he wants to steal Zelos’ core crystal, Zelos wonders if, perhaps…

Mithos is still justified.

Like Lloyd, all Mithos wants to do is make things better for blades.

And wanting to destroy humanity? Well, Zelos can’t blame him for that.

But Raine yelps, as Mithos’ sword slides halfway through her shield. Cold fear is dumped over Zelos’ head, and he shivers. Forget whether or not Mithos is justified! Mithos is going to _kill them_. Zelos’ mind spins, calculates quickly. He has to get Raine out of here. He has to—

Throw himself to the right, because Mithos wants _him_ , because Mithos will leave Raine alone if she isn’t between him and Zelos.

Mithos backs off of Raine. Zelos lets out a sigh of relief, tries to calculate what to do next.

“If you want to make self-sufficient blades so bad, then maybe we can help you!” Sheena calls. She pounds a fist against her chest, like a star for how bright her resolve burns. “But you have to stop attacking us first!”

“Why would I want _your_ help!?” Mithos demands, rounding on Sheena. Something sharp and angry snaps along his words for the first time this whole battle, something that makes Zelos boil because alright, yeah, humanity sucks, but _this one_ is a _good one_ and if Mithos even _looks_ at her like that again Zelos is going to rip his spine out.

“I read all the research on artificial blades, and _they_ used to be self-sufficient,” Sheena continues. The feverish excitement of being on the edge of a profound revelation echoes Mithos, echoes Lloyd. “Maybe there’s a way to—”

“What do you know?” Mithos spits. “What do you _care_!? You’re _human!_ You could never possibly understand all the horrors _your_ kind has put us through!”

It’s sharp, cruel, the line that Mithos draws between the blades and Sheena.

But it’s hard not to feel, too.

( _Zelos, knowing the sensation of sick satisfaction bubbling up in his chest even as they took everything from him and then more than that, because at least he was being used for the purpose he was created for._

 _Genis, always having too much demanded of him and being punished when he couldn’t meet unreasonable standards, praise always followed by ridicule if he was ever praised at all and the unfortunate truth that at the time he’d_ wanted _the praise, more than anything else._

 _Raine, knowing nothing but anger and horror for most of her life because even if she could keep up her brother couldn’t and it wasn’t fair it wasn’t fair. “He’s just a child!!” she had screamed and the only response she got back was a smug, entitled: “He exists to serve me. That’s what blades are_ for _.”_

 _How did you forget, cruelty like that? How did you forgive it?_ )

Mithos tilts his head back, smiling wide and smug.

Sheena burns.

“Yes I _can,_ ” she spits, because she remembers a line of empty cages and dead blades, the way Corrine was distrustful and angry and terrified at the start, she’s read the research, she knows what they’ve killed because it wasn’t what they _wanted_. “And I can _help._ I _want_ to help, and I think I know how, too! The artificial blades—they were self-sufficient, to begin with. If we can just—”

“And why would I want to borrow humanity’s research?” Mithos counters, voice filled with venom. Zelos takes a step forward, gripping his sword tightly. “I don’t need it, anyway. I _already_ have it figured out!”

With that cry, he runs at Zelos again.

Blocking Mithos’ blow is easy, but the impact still shakes Zelos to his very core. The strength of Mithos’ ether is incredible. It presses down on Zelos all at once, creeping under his skin. His body feels like it’s going to shatter, any second now. Zelos bites his tongue and knees Mithos in the stomach.

He might as well have tried kicking a rock.

Mithos acts like he doesn’t feel it. His foot hooks around Zelos’ ankle, and with a swipe and a shove he sends Zelos sprawling. His sword presses to Zelos’ throat.

_Fuck, shit._

Zelos reaches into his wells of ether to try and do _something,_ but everything’s tingly and distant and his head spins too much for him to do anything. The walls tremble around him. Sheena yells but he doesn’t hear her words. He feels a concentration of ether grow between him and Mithos, braces for the worst—

The ether explodes in Mithos’ direction, broken and angry, and sends Mithos flying.

“Genis!” Raine shouts, followed by the sound of a body hitting the ground.

( _Even being in a place as ether-rich as this is not enough to fix all the things broken in Genis’ system._ )

Zelos swings his head towards the boy, guilt sliding down his throat. The cavern trembles again. Mithos pushes himself to his feet, steps towards Genis—

A blast of lightning cuts through the rubble that separates them from everyone else.

Mithos steps back. His face curls with frustration. Saying nothing, he raises his sword to ceiling and lets loose a blast of ether. The weakened cavern sends rocks tumbling down around him.

“Mithos!” Martel shouts, running forward.

It takes some arguing, but in the end everyone helps her clear the rubble. Or, everyone except Zelos, who can’t give a shit, and Raine, who is healing Genis.

When the rubble is cleared, all they find is a hole in the ceiling through which the sun shines.

Mithos is gone.

 

\- - -

 

 “Can I…?” Genis asks, cheeks hot and hesitant. It feels strangely intimate, fingers hovering in the air just inches from Mithos’ core crystal.

Mithos laughs, smiles. “Go ahead,” he says.

They sit on the roof of Mithos’ tower, under a sea of stars. The twin moons are both full and bright, providing plenty of light, especially combined with the glows of their core crystals and ether lines in their skin. The rainbow light cast by Mithos’ core crystal is… fascinating.

With trembling fingers, Genis brushes his thumb against a line of pink. The colors are mesmerizing. Genis runs his fingers along them, wanting to learn and never forget their pattern, as if it isn’t too random and detailed to really be memorized. Mithos shivers, eyes closed and breath quick. Genis’ fingers slow to a stop. Mithos’ crystal burns under his touch. The rainbow is unnatural, the sign of a boy playing god—something his friends and sister both looked at with disgust—but Genis thinks it’s beautiful.

“Why…” Genis asks, slowly, unable to raise his voice above a whisper. The moment is too precious, too sacred, to disturb. “Why did you do this?”

Mithos shrugs, slowly. When he opens his eyes, they’re glinting. “Well, self-sufficient blades… they only _really_ work if they have a piece of an Aegis. And since I’m the only Aegis around…”

He’s been breaking off pieces of himself and offering those pieces to other blades to bring them freedom. There’s barely any sapphire remaining in his crystal. The shard of Mithos that sits in Genis’ chest feels kind of like it’s on fire. So do Genis’ cheeks.

“Is that… why you attacked us, this last time?” Genis whispers.

“Yes,” Mithos answers, without hesitation. “I need more Aegis shards.”

The way he says _shards_ makes the human blood in Genis’ veins run cold. He swallows. Pulls his hand away from Mithos—he doesn’t want to, but the heat is too much in the sudden coldness of this moment. Genis kind of regrets asking. He wants to know, he _has_ to know, but a part of him selfishly wishes he could be satisfied with ignorance, and he and Mithos could go back to laughing under the night sky…

(As it is, he still chooses to be ignorant about the depths of Mithos’ wishes, because if he thinks about it in full he has no choice but to turn his back on Mithos and he can’t do that, he can’t.)

“Isn’t there another way?” Genis pleads. He remembers, something Raine said once, something he saw again in one of the books in Mithos’ library. “The Architect—” It seems wild, absurd, that the answer could really come from _him,_ but, chasing the impossible is better than settling with a harsh reality “—if we could just, get in touch with him…”

Genis isn’t sure what to do, what to ask, if it’d even work.

Mithos surprises him by chuckling and shaking his head.

“It wouldn’t work,” Mithos declares. “I’ve already spoken with the Architect. He wasn’t fond of my ideas.”

Genis reels back. “You- _You spoke with the Architect!?_ ” he splutters.

“It’s not like getting to Derris-Kharlan was hard,” Mithos says, like it’s no big deal. “Of course it wasn’t. A single human did it once, to retrieve myself and my sister.” ( _He does not tell Genis getting to Derris-Kharlan is as easy as stepping on a teleportation device he has in this tower.)_  “Anyway… The Architect’s not interested in destroying humanity, nor in recreating the entire world. I don’t think he’ll be of much help.”

Genis sits, stunned, trying to remember how to breathe. Mithos _spoke with the Architect._ The Architect is _real_. His knuckles brush against the stone of the tower. The way Mithos tilts his head to the side, eyes narrowing with concern, grounds Genis. He shakes his head. Hits his hands against his thighs to ground himself further.

“I… what if… we try again?” Genis suggests, still clinging to hope, wanting a solution that isn’t Mithos’— _don’t think about it don’t think about it._

Mithos considers that, nodding. “I suppose it has been three hundred years, maybe he’ll have changed his mind. Certainly he’s had plenty of time to understand the full of humanity’s folly by now.”

“And… if not,” Genis says. “Maybe we can just ask him about… Making blades’ lives a little better. If we can do that… isn’t that enough?”

Mithos cocks his eyebrows upward. “I thought you wanted to see humanity burn,” he asks, somewhere between accusing and teasing. _Testing,_ perhaps, is the right word, even if the lilt of his voice is fond.

“I do,” Genis insists, and, he does. “But. Not if burning them will take blades down with them.” And then, for Mithos, he smiles. “Besides, if we can get the Architect to fix the blade system… nothing’s stopping us from setting humanity alight after that, right?”

Mithos outright grins.

“Good point,” he says.

Genis feels like he’s flying.

 

\- - -

 

 “So… that’s his son, huh?” Yuan asks, eyes fixed on Lloyd.

“Apparently,” Martel says. She’s a little sad, that she never got to meet the boy’s mother. A woman Kratos could fall in love with must have been someone really special.

Really… _really_ special, because last Martel checked, it wasn’t actually possible for blades and humans to produce children together. Perhaps it had something to do with Kratos being a flesh eater? Or…

“Hm,” Yuan says. He’s scowling.

“What?” Martel asks, somewhat grateful for the distraction.

“It’s just…” Yuan hesitates a moment, like he can’t find the words, or perhaps he’s come to the same uncomfortable realization Martel has. “I may not have any of my memories, so correct me if I’m wrong, but… Isn’t the fact that Kratos… you know…”

“Fucked?” Martel finishes, still trying to come to grips with it herself.

“That!” Yuan nods, face scrunched up in what’s either immense confusion or extreme horror. “That’s _weird,_ right?”

Martel laughs, shaky in her disbelief but fond nonetheless.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “ _Yeah_.”

 

\- - -

 

Colette tilts her head to the side as she watches the fish swim down the river she squats by. The silver gleam of the fish is fascinating, and the sound of the water against the rocks is soothing. It’s nice to take a break and enjoy the little things. It’s nice, especially, because she never thought she _could_ enjoy the little things like this. ( _Martel’s sadness twinges in her at the thought, but Colette’s used to feeling it, so she hardly notices._ ) She reaches a hand out to touch the water, feeling the cold against her fingers—

“Hey.”

Sheena’s voice. Colette jumps. Flails. Nearly falls face-first into the river. Sheena’s hand catches her by the arm, though, yanking her back.

“Geeze! I didn’t mean to scare you!”

Colette giggles on reflex. “Hehe, sorry,” she says. She lets Sheena help straighten her out, her skin burning from Sheena’s touch, and her face burning, too. She ignores these things and Martel’s laughter as she puts on a smile for Sheena, like nothing’s wrong, like her ether isn’t pulsing twice as fast as it’s supposed to. “Did you need something?” she asks.

Sheena’s face is red too, at least. She’s so cute when she’s flustered. It’s not fair.

(In the back of Colette’s mind, Martel keeps laughing. That’s not fair, either.)

“I just, uh.” Sheena turns her face away, making a show of straightening her clothes. “Look. Have you been avoiding me?”

“Haha, um,” Colette says. The answer is yes, a little bit, but the reason is complicated and she doesn’t want to offend Sheena.

“I knew it,” Sheena sighs, before Colette can find her words.

“No, no, it’s not like that!” Colette says quickly, getting to her feet and waving her hands to push that notion out of Sheena’s mind. “It’s not like I don’t like your or anything, it’s just, um,”

“Is it because I tried to kill you?”

Colette shakes her head again. “No, no!!” She isn’t mad at Sheena for that. She _can’t_ be mad at Sheena for that. “It’s just…” But finding where to start on the explanation of _pretty sure she has a crush which is embarrassing enough except also Martel is here which makes it kind of worse_ is frankly impossible so Colette flounders for words like a fish for air while the river pounds a steady rhythm behind her.

“Just what?” Sheena demands, brown eyes flashing up to meet Colette’s. She looks. Upset. She tugs at her sleeve.

‘ _Sorry,’_ Martel whispers, in the back of Colette’s mind.

 _No!! don’t be!!_ Colette sends furiously back at her. _It’s fine!_

Martel seems certain that it’s not. Colette decides to forget about placating her and focus instead on Sheena—Martel, at least, will be around later to apologize to. Sheena might not be.

“Listen, Sheena,” Colette says, holding her hands out to the other girl. Sheena crosses her arms defensively. “I like you… a lot, actually,” she says, because she might as well be honest. It’s hard to keep her voice at a level pitch, and her either burns hot as she speaks. Sheena’s deeper blush doesn’t help. “But being around you is hard because it makes me nervous, and…” She feels bad, calling Martel out, when Martel is a knot of shame, but Sheena has to understand. “Having Martel here, in the back of my head… That doesn’t make it any easier.”

“Oh,” Sheena says, short. She reaches up to cough into her hand, an act which looks like it might be to hide her face. “I guess. That. Would make more sense than assuming you hate me.”

“I definitely don’t hate you,” Colette assures Sheena.

She reaches for Martel, trying to convey the same to her—Colette could _never_ hate that Martel is here, even if it makes things complicated—but Martel has retreated somewhere distant. Colette can feel her, but only barely. Well. At least she has the privacy to finish this conversation with Sheena.

“I really am sorry,” Sheena says. “About trying to kill you.”

Colette shakes her head. “No, it’s alright,” she insists, settling back onto the ground. “I know Zelos means a lot to you. I think… I probably would have done the same.”

( _Probably,_ because she doesn’t know for certain. Colette hasn’t had a family until very recently. The concept of loving someone so much you’d kill—or die—for them is kind of new to her. But Martel knows what that feeling is like, and Colette can borrow her knowledge to understand it a little better.)

“Yeah?” Sheena asks, with a raise of her eyebrows like she doesn’t believe it.

“Well… I don’t know,” Colette admits. She smooths out her shirt. Wishes Sheena would sit down, but doesn’t want to ask. “I’d like to think so. Going to such lengths to protect your family… that’s what anyone would do, right?”

“I mean… yeah?” Sheena shrugs, then turns and coughs into her hand again. Definitely an embarrassed tic. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Colette turns away a little, so she can dip her fingers back into the water again. It’s cold. She likes the sensation, the unrelenting pull of water that does not stop even for her. “I’m still… kind of new to the family thing,” she whispers. She isn’t sure why. But she wants to share. Maybe it’d make up for all the avoiding Sheena she’s been doing.

(And if Martel is avoiding her—she’ll have to fix that, later—then she has the privacy to discuss whatever she wants to, anyway.)

Sheena laughs, kind of startled. “What?”

“Zelos… was very lucky,” Colette says, by way of explanation.

“Ohh…” The sound of understanding that Sheena makes is soft, a little sad. “I… you didn’t have anyone? Not your driver? Or were they—”

“They were alright,” Colette says, because she doesn’t want it to go on record that they _weren’t_. Her driver was very kind, at least at the end ( _“Go go go I’ll hold them off if you want to run then just run—!”_ ) but she hadn’t seen much of them before that. There was never a reason to. And unlike Zelos, she didn’t have a guard. Just a string of scientists that kept running tests on her, trying to figure out how to get the cannon to respond to her, and then…

And then she had Martel.

“Before Martel, I didn’t really have anyone else,” Colette continues. She leaves her fingers in the water, but reaches up her other hand to trace over the uneven cracks in her crystal, where pink meets green. It’s a comforting gesture. Reminding her of what she has now, and that she can never go back to how things were. “And through Lloyd, I’ve met all these other wonderful people. I love them dearly, but I… it’s strange, and kind of scary. Having a family.”

For a bastard Aegis like her, having a family was something she’d never dared to dream was _allowed_ , let alone something that would actually happen to her.

“Well…” Sheena says. Her voice is quiet, nearly lost to the gentle roar of the river. “Family’s about a lot more than just… doing anything to protect one another.” She speaks as if around a knot in her throat. Colette tilts her head towards Sheena, curious. She’s surprised to find that Sheena’s sat down—not next to her, but close.

Sheena reaches into the river, pulls out a rock and rolls it between her fingers. She hesitates before she says anymore.

“Family… is about feeling safe, too,” Sheena says. “And sometimes, about getting on each other’s nerves. But…” She pauses. Lets the rock fall out of her hands and plop into the water. “I don’t know. What am I saying?” She shakes her head, laughs. “I don’t think I know a lot about being a family, either, but I know… I’d do anything, to protect Zelos, and Seles.” She turns her head, sending a smile at Colette, her brown eyes burning. “I’d do anything to protect you, too.”

The coldness of the water is nothing compared to how hot her ether runs right now. Colette blushes furiously, feeling like a song is about to burst from her chest. She grins.

“Thank you, Sheena,” she says.

Sheena seems to realize herself. She blinks rapidly and turns her bright red face away. “Not that, I, uh, Um?” she stammers. Colette giggles. Sheena slaps her hands to her face to hide her blush.

“I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you,” Colette says. “I’ll try and stop. I think- I think I’ll like spending more time with you.”

(She and Martel could figure it out. They’ve been figuring it out so Martel could spend time with Kratos and Yuan, anyway. They can figure it out so Colette could spend time with Sheena.)

“That, um,” Sheena stammers, not looking at Colette. “That’d be great?” Her voice kind of squeaks around the words.

It’s cute.

 

\- - -

 

There’s a light in the distance.

Lloyd watches it, weightless in the darkness. The light circles something, eclipsed by the object, until its orbit brings it back around, shining brightly in front of whatever it is it circles. The object is too dark to make out, illuminated only by the light that circles it.

The light circles it once, twice, three times.

And on the third, it pulls away into a curtain of light that bathes everything in sight in whiteness.

Lloyd screws his eyes shut against it. The intensity of it fades, after a moment. And then there is grey beneath him, glittering structures of glass on all sides, stars above. The stars are closer. Brighter. Colder.

“Where… is this…?” he asks, turning as well as he can in the low gravity to try and take it all in.

“A dream,” comes Martel’s voice. And then she is beside him, grabbing his hand and pulling him forward.

“A… dream?” Lloyd repeats, a little surprised. And then he remembers, how he’s met Colette in dreams before. None of them were quite like this, though. They were always quieter. They tended to happen back on Aselia. But this… Lloyd has no idea what this is.

“Yes,” Martel answers. “There’s something I wanted to show you.”

There’s a flash of light above. Brilliant green and blue. Lloyd stops and turns his gaze up towards it, tugging against Martel when she tries to pull him forward again. He can’t help it. It’s breathtaking.

“Whoooaaa,” he whispers. Blue and green weave together, bright and blinding, but he can’t pull his eyes away. The taste of ether in the air is so thick he could choke on it, easily. The stars feel a little warmer, filtered by all this light. “What is this?” he asks.

“Not what I wanted to show you,” Martel says.

Lloyd reels at the thought, nearly upending them in the zero-gravity. “What? How is it not, _look_ at that!” He points with his free hand up at the sky. The light-show is dazzling. Something is forming, as the blue and green come together. Something… big. “What’s even happening?”

“I… don’t know,” Martel admits. “I can’t really remember.”

“Is this a memory?”

“I think so. A very old one.”

“Can we watch?” Lloyd asks.

Martel hesitates. Then she stops tugging. “I suppose we can.”

So they do.

Blue and green intertwine, painting a picture. The stars seem to pull towards it. Ether gathers in staggering amounts. And then—

There’s a planet.

“Is that…?” Lloyd asks, surprised. He recognizes the shape of the continents from the maps. It… has to be.

It’s so much more beautiful, looking at it like this.

“Aselia…” Martel finishes, in an awed whisper, like she hadn’t expected this at all.

The stars pull towards the planet more aggressively—falling, a rainbow of colors raining upon the planet, specks of light disappearing as they become too far away to see. Lloyd lets out a low whistle. He wonders how many people have gotten to see this. Is he the only one? It’s kind of humbling, watching this happen.

“The birth of…” Martel whispers, then gets distracted. She shakes her head, tugs at Lloyd—gently, a question. “Anyway. What I wanted to show you was something else.”

“Yeah, sure,” Lloyd says, tearing his gaze away. He lets Martel lead him. “Where is this, anyway?”

“Derris-Kharlan,” Martel answers. She sounds… distant. A little wistful. “It’s nothing special, really, but I just… wanted you to see it, I suppose.”

An echo of longing, of sadness, resonates along their emotional link. It’s a sensation Lloyd only feels when he thinks too long about his adoptive father’s workshop, the roar of the fire, the clang of steel, the warm sensation of earth. Lloyd breathes carefully as the emotion fills him, trying to weather it out and not let it consume him.

“Is this… home?” Lloyd asks.

“It was,” Martel says. “I miss it more than I think I should, seeing as I barely remember it, but…”

She stops. They’re up pretty high, in this city of glass. The sun rising behind Aselia casts its rays on the city, reflecting on the glass until everything is alight. It glows and it glitters, and Martel fills with peace so deep that Lloyd can’t help but let the sensation pull at him.

“I just wanted to see this, again,” Martel whispers. “It’s what I miss the most.”

“I can see why,” Lloyd says. “It’s… beautiful.”

He takes it in for a few minutes, but then his attention is pulled towards Aselia again. It’s hard to _not_ look at it, hanging in the sky, like that. It has a moon, now. Lloyd wonders for a moment where the second one is, but then gets side-tracked as he spots something.

Down, below them, though still within the city. There’s a man. Ether sprouts from his back like wings, beautiful petals of light. One of the wings is blue, and the other, green. _Martel’s_ green, Lloyd realizes. And that must be—Mithos’ blue.

“Hey, look!” Lloyd leans forward, pointing. “That’s the Architect, isn’t it!?” Martel’s peace filling in his chest pops and is overcome by his own wave of excitement. He never thought he’d get to _see_ the Architect! He kind of wants to just hop over the ledge of this balcony and run to meet the Architect—it’s a dream, so the fall won’t kill him—but Martel’s grip on him holds him back. He asks permission, instead. “Can we go talk to him??”

Martel shakes her head, and Lloyd sighs with disappointment.

“It’s only a dream,” Martel tells Lloyd. She smiles, apologetically. “He’s just a distant memory. I imagine he won’t be much of a conversation partner.”

“Aww,” Lloyd says. “That’s alright. It was cool, even just seeing him. Seeing all _this_.” He looks up towards Aselia again. Nothing has changed about it, but considering the glow around the Architect, he must be doing _something_. “How many people can say they watched the creation of the world? That’s crazy! It’s amazing!”

“Isn’t it?” Martel agrees.

Everything fades to white.

 

\- - -

 

The sweet, somewhat intense feeling fills Colette’s lungs again, and she sighs, a little weary of it by now. The sharp burst of fondness and disbelief and joy and anxiousness that doesn’t belong to her at all, the package of emotions she and Martel have exasperatedly started calling the Zelos-Is-Thinking-About-Lloyd sensation.

Sure enough, if she looks, Zelos and Lloyd are walking along not too far behind them—not holding hands, but fingers close enough to, shoulders bumping intermittedly against each other. Lloyd’s own quiet burst of happiness filters into her chest, too, but compared to the weight of Zelos’ emotions, it’s barely noticeable.

 _This is ridiculous,_ Colette remarks privately to Martel, feeling exasperated and fond herself. _They’re ridiculous!_

‘ _They are,’_ Martel agrees, that note of exasperation resonating between the two of them. ‘ _But there’s not much we can do about it.’_

 _No,_ Colette says. She knows that. It’s not like she can ask them to, what? Stop feeling? That’s silly. She tries to be happy for them, though the three-way emotional bond is certainly more confusing than anything else about her otherwise easy connection to Zelos.

Martel laughs, quietly.

 _Hm?_ Colette asks her.

_‘Just thinking… Perhaps I’ll have to apologize to Kratos, one of these days.’_

Colette raises her eyebrows. _Really_?

The conveyed sensation of a nod she gets from Martel is paired with exasperation and a hint of shame. ‘ _I’m not sure if Yuan and I were quite this bad but, likely, we were worse,’_ she admits, with another laugh. ‘ _With the four-way emotional bond between us and Kratos and Mithos, things were a little… well, you can imagine.’_

Martel’s laughing, so Colette laughs a little too. She wonders how hectic that was.

 _Did any of you figure out a way to make it, you know, a little more manageable?_ she asks, hopeful.

‘ _Unfortunately, it’s easier to stop sending signals than it is to stop receiving them,’_ is Martel’s answer. ‘ _And personally, I never minded so much, so I wasn’t_ trying _to stop receiving the signals. You’d have to ask Kratos._ ’

 _If I ask and you apologize, that’ll kill two birds with one stone,_ Colette says, and Martel laughs.

For now, though, they leave it alone.

Exasperating as it is, Colette supposes she can understand why Martel didn’t mind the signals so much. It’s nice, constantly being connected, constantly having the reminder that she isn’t alone.

It’s nice, being able to feel her family so close to her.

 

\- - -

 

The only piece of civilization before they reach Mithos’ tower, at this point, is a small farm in the middle of nowhere. Kratos has passed by it many times, spoken to the man who lives on it once—not that he remembers the conversation, and he doubts the man remembers it either—but it’s not really a place he intends for their group to stop. They have to pass by it, of course, but that’s all Kratos intends for them to do.

And then the man who lives on the farm calls out to them.

“Hello, travelers!” he calls, waving his hand above his head. He sounds… nervous.

Kratos hesitates, looking to his companions. “We _could_ keep walking,” he says, in low tones.

Lloyd shrugs, exchanges a look with Colette. “Yeah, but, that’d be kind of rude? What’s it gonna hurt?”

He changes course to approach the man more directly, and so the rest of the party follows.

The fact that this could actually have been a bad idea occurs to Lloyd when they’re close enough for the man to see them, and equally close enough for them to see how his golden eyes widen when they fall on Zelos. The man keeps smiling, but it’s definitely forced. Discomfort roils in Zelos, and Lloyd fidgets under the weight of it.

There’s silence, for a moment.

“What’s Tethe’alla’s Aegis doing all the way out here?” the man asks.

Lloyd moves to step in front of Zelos, as does Sheena, and Seles, and Yuan. The man sees this, and then laughs, for some reason seeming to relax. He hastily puts up empty hands. The swiftness of the action stirs his short, silver hair.

“Hey, hey, I mean no harm,” he says, quickly. “Any person—or, group of people—on the run with a stolen blade is a good person, in my book.” He grins at them, wide and easy, then winks. “I wouldn’t dream of handing you over.”

“Good!” Sheena snaps. “Because we would have killed you before you tried!”

“I would have liked to see you try!” comes another voice, from a young woman that stalks up to stand behind the man. She stands with her hands on her hips, grinning a cocky grin. She’s a blade, they all can see, green core crystal and ether lines both out in the open.

The man winces. “ _Mythra_ ,” he hisses.

“What?” the blade named Mythra shoots back.

“You know better than to—”

He doesn’t finish before Mythra rolls her eyes. “Oh come on, Dad, it’s been five years and no one’s found us yet. _Besides_.” Her eyes fix on Zelos. “I _think_ the Tethe’allan military has more important things to worry about than the guy who stole two blades from them, considering _their Aegis_ has been stolen.”

Seles laughs. “She’s got a point!”

The man spins around, flustered and glaring. “Look,” he begins.

“Stolen blades, huh?” Kratos asks, before he can finish. “Sounds like some story.”

The man hesitates, then sighs, and smiles, scratching at the back of his head. “If you want to hear it, why don’t you join us for a meal,” he says. “The name’s Addam.”

“We _are_ somewhat in a hurry, though,” Raine protests.

Lloyd laughs and rolls his eyes. “Hey, I’m worried about Genis too, but it’s still, what, two days from Mithos’?” He looks to Kratos, who nods. “We haven’t been able to stop in a town for ages, seeing as we’re all wanted criminals, so a hot meal would be kind of fantastic.”

Raine fumes, but everyone else agrees with Lloyd.

Grinning, Addam claps his hands together. “That’s the spirit! Us fugitives have to look out for each other, right? Come on inside.”

 

\- - -

 

“You really sure about this?” Lloyd asks again, wanting to double-check.

“Of course I am,” his father replies. Kratos readies his sword, easing into his fighting stance—which, really, looks not much different than how he usually stands. “Someone needs to help you learn the ropes, and as the only other man in the world who has wielded two Aegises at once, I do believe I am the most qualified.”

( _The only other man in THIS world, Martel thinks privately, from her distant perch in the back of Colette’s mind._ )

“I think he just has a death wish,” Zelos calls, haughty to hide how nervous he is.

Kratos rolls his eyes.

“Ha, ha, very funny Zelos,” Lloyd says, with no humor in his voice at all.

“Are you prepared, Lloyd?” Kratos asks, a little eager to get on with this.

“Yeah, yeah!” Lloyd insists. He calls Colette’s sword to his right hand, then Zelos’ to his left. Kratos expects to see Lloyd stagger, but Lloyd does not. He just breathes. Good.

“The most important thing is to remember to keep your head up,” Kratos relays, carefully. “The river of ether might try and drag you under, but don’t let it overwhelm you. Keep your footing.”

To any man unfamiliar with the flows of ether, it would sound like Kratos was speaking nonsense. But Lloyd understands just fine, perhaps because he can feel that current of ether flowing through him now. It’s much stronger than he’s used to, pushing and pulling—two streams feeding off of each other like a dance. But that’s the thing. It’s a dance, and it’s joyful, the singing that echoes between the two joining streams. It invigorates him.

Also, Lloyd has to say; fighting with two swords, again? He couldn’t be happier.

“You wanna move first?” Lloyd asks.

“Attack when you are ready,” is Kratos’ reply.

Lloyd considers it a moment, but he’s pretty sure he’s ready. He kicks off from the ground and launches himself at Kratos. The weight of the swords is a little different than he’s used to, but he moves with the dance in his veins—step step jump _swing_ , two swords in unison.

Kratos catches them with his own sword, prepared as he always is, but his eyes are wide with surprise, with pride.

“Very good,” he remarks.

Lloyd grins.

Back off keep with the rhythm don’t try and move the ether let the ether move you.

“This is… easier than I expected it’d be?” Zelos says, like he can’t believe it, and Colette giggles.

“I told you Lloyd’s good at this!” she says.

Lloyd basks in their praise, grinning wide and determined. There’s a song in his veins and he wants to get lost in it, though he knows the dangers of getting _too_ lost. He leaps into the air and brings both swords swinging down. Ether explodes from them, arcs of power that race towards Kratos. Kratos jumps out of the way, _laughing._

(It’s hard not to. Joy and pride for the ease his son has grasped this with fill him to the brim, but, more than that—there’s ties of ether, between him and Lloyd, because half of his core crystal sits in Lloyd’s chest. The Aegises’ power flows along those ties and into Kratos, filling his ether deficient system with just an echo of their power, but even an echo is like bliss, like—

Like finally breaking the surface of water after hundreds of years drowning, the joy of being able to just _breathe_ again. Kratos has not felt this alive in a long time.)

They keep at it, so that not just Lloyd but Colette and Zelos can get the hang of this, too. Working in tandem is not difficult, for them—how could it be? They are two halves of a set—but Zelos has never been a proper blade in battle, before, and all three of them need to know how not to exhaust themselves.

When Kratos finally calls it quits, and Lloyd sits down in between his blades—properly tired but not exhausted—he’s grinning from ear to ear. The flow of ether into him is less strong, now that they aren’t actively in battle, but it still loops through his body. He wonders if he feels even half as good as Colette and Zelos feel, finally being connected to each other after all this time being apart.

“You’re a natural, honey,” Zelos says, leaning into Lloyd’s shoulder.

“I _told you_ ,” Colette insists again, quiet but laughing, as she leans into Lloyd’s other side.

Kratos sits down in front of them, winded himself. He can’t seem to stop smiling, either, which is a refreshing sight.

“You might even be better at this than I ever was,” Kratos muses. (Privately, he wonders if it has to do with Lloyd’s heritage.)

“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep practicing, though,” Lloyd argues, resolute. “If we’re going to stop Mithos… if we’re going to stop this war… Then we have to keep at it. We have to keep getting stronger. We can’t afford to slack off!”

( _At times like these, Kratos feels full of sorrow, knowing his son must shoulder the crusade that he abandoned. But, at least… Anna would be proud, wouldn’t she?)_

“Speaking… of the war…” Colette says slowly, a short echo of fear in her words. “Do you think we should try stopping that first?”

Kratos looks at her, carefully, perhaps trying to judge how much of these fears are her own and how much are his old friend’s.

“You must know stopping a war is no easy matter,” Kratos says. “It would take much too long. Stopping Mithos is the greater priority, considering his plans…”

“I know, but,” Colette protests, a little too quickly. “I’ve just been thinking. If we can get the war to end, wouldn’t that show Mithos? That humanity doesn’t need to be…?”

Kratos shakes his head. His smile from earlier has been replaced with a great weight. “No,” he says, somber. “Believe me. Ending it now would prove nothing, to Mithos. He knows they will just start again, in time. He’s lost all faith that they’ll ever stop.”

( _“Humans and their endless war…”_ Words whispered with contempt, ages ago. _“All it’s done has prove they don’t deserve this planet.”_ )

“Yeah, but, are you _really_ okay with that?” Zelos, surprisingly, asks. He considers Kratos with narrowed eyes, his thoughts also fixed on the woman that sits in the back of his sister Aegis’ mind. “With the reality we’ll have to fight him? That we might have to—”

“No,” Kratos interjects, before Zelos can say the words. He shrugs, though, distant, tired. “But what choice do we have?”

“I’m hoping it won’t come to that,” Colette whispers, with Martel’s voice. She runs her fingers over her core crystal, expression pinched. “And if it does…” She doesn’t finish. She can’t finish. Martel will never have the words to describe how such an act would destroy her.

Feeling the anxiety that runs across his link to Colette, to Martel, Lloyd pushes back against it with the sharpest hope he can muster.

“It won’t come to that,” he insists. “We’ll talk to Mithos. He _has_ to listen to us.”

Zelos is the only one who thinks it’s just wishful thinking, but even he doesn’t want to burst the bubble of cautious peace that comes to life in Colette and Martel, so he keeps his mouth shut.

 

\- - -

 

“Father, please. The humans won’t stop their war,” Mithos says, voice high and cold. He stands as tall as he is able, rigid and proud in the middle of a city of glass. “I don’t think they ever will.”

“And… what do you want me to do about that?” the Architect, his father, asks carefully.

Mithos’ voice trembles, though he doesn’t ask it to. “You can do anything, can’t you?” he says, the flow of his ether hiccupping a little.

Hesitation, from his father.

“Within reason,” the Architect says.

Mithos’ ether shudders within him, disappointment and despair ringing within him like a gong.

He really thought his father would have a solution to this.

He fumbles for words, but before he can find them, the Architect speaks:

“Why don’t the blades do something about it?”

The words are so thoughtless, so callous, that it makes frustration run along Mithos’ ether, but the frustration is not a sharp, hot thing—it is cold as Mithos’ core feels.

“Blades can’t do _anything_ when they’re slaves to humanity’s every whim,” Mithos counters, seething with his anger. “We’re nothing more than tools in an endless war. And no one ever cares what the _tools_ think!” His mind churns with memories of pleas bubbling up in his throat only to result in dismissive laughter or worse. ( _The sting of pain across his cheek hands shoving him back down and hooking wires into him shut up stay down do as you’re told._

 _That’s why blades exist, isn’t it?_ )

There’s a long pause, as the Architect considers what the Aegis asks of him.

“And… your solution is to destroy humanity?”

“Yes,” Mithos answers, resolute.

Another pause. Ether keeps churning frustration and disbelief on loop in Mithos’ veins.

“No,” the Architect says. “I cannot do that.”

(He says can’t, but Mithos knows he means _won’t_.)

Icy claws grip at Mithos’ chest, rage and the sting of betrayal clinging to him and refusing to let him go. For once, his anger feels hot, so hot it could melt the city of glass they stand in, because this anger is fueled by pain and Mithos knows no pain other than the burning kind. It burned, when humanity used him. It burned, when Martel died. It burns, now, as his father betrays him.

“So you’d rather blades suffer!?” Mithos demands, seeing red. “Don’t you _care_ about us at all!?”

“Killing humanity is not the solution.”

“It’s the _only solution!_ ”

Through tears, Mithos glares up at his father, and he waits. He waits. But it becomes clear that his father, the Architect of this world, will not budge. He cares too much for his precious humans that he refuses to pay even half a mind to his children. It is Mithos’ first real taste of betrayal. (It won’t be his last.)

Mithos straightens. Stand tall. Back straight. Refuse to be swayed. The perfect picture of the weapon he was never meant to be.

“Fine,” he says, crisp. Pain turns to anger, and the burning turns to ice. “Then I’ll do it myself.”

His father shakes his head. Exasperated? Sad? Mithos doesn’t care.

“You have but a fraction of my power, and without your sister, even less than that,” the Architect cautions.

Mithos turns on his heel.

“It’s more than enough.”

 

\- - -

 

“Hey, Dad?” Lloyd says, then hesitates. “Mind if I sit down?” he asks.

“Go for it,” Kratos tells him, scooting over so there’s more room on the porch steps of this house for Lloyd _to_ sit.

( _They’d been a little nervous, at first, staying with a human. But Addam is a runaway like they are, a deserter from the Tethe’allan army, a man who stole and adopted a pair of high-class blades. It’s easy to trust a man like that, a man that believes the same about blades as they all do. And besides. Why would a fugitive want to turn in another group of fugitives?_ )

Lloyd sits down next to his father, then: “Can I…?” he begins, but doesn’t finish, always finding the words _I know sometimes you’re not okay with being touched so is now okay or should I not?_ a little too big for his mouth. Kratos understands, though.

“Go on,” he says, and permission granted, Lloyd gratefully leans into his father’s side, relishing in the comfort of the physical presence, as well as the ether link that flows between them. “What’s on your mind?” Kratos asks. He’s mostly expressionless as he turns to his son—he often is—but there’s a slight quirk of his eyebrows upwards, a smile pulling at the edges of his mouth.

“I’ve just been wondering something, I guess,” Lloyd says, staring past the field of wheat and eyes fixed on the blue horizon. The sun is an hour or so away from setting. Laughter echoes from inside the house, carried with the smells of something delicious cooking. Lloyd wraps his hand around Kratos’ arm, clinging to his father.

“And what would that be?”

“Why’d you do it?” Lloyd whispers. “Stop the war. Save the Aegises. You didn’t even know them.”

“You didn’t know Zelos,” Kratos counters, gentle.

“Sheena asked.”

“You didn’t know her, either.”

Kratos’ persistence makes Lloyd laugh, though he’s a little frustrated.

“Yeah, well, it was wrong,” Lloyd says, lifting his head from Kratos’ shoulder in his frustration, though he still clings to Kratos’ arm. “What they were doing to Zelos. I couldn’t stand the thought of letting a blade suffer like that. That’s not what blades are _for_. They aren’t tools to be used!”

Kratos smiles to himself.

“Exactly,” he says.

Lloyd turns to look at him, realizes what’s going on. “That’s why, huh?” Lloyd laughs, as his father just keeps smiling. “You thought the same.”

Kratos nods. “Yes.”

“Because… you’re a blade?” Lloyd guesses. “Or, well, I guess you’re a flesh eater now, but…”

(Truthfully, it is exactly _because_ he is a flesh eater that Kratos has such strong opinions about blades being used for a human’s gain. But he decided long ago that his son didn’t need to know of the horrors he was put through— _awakened just to be experimented on, the pain, the fear, the fact he doesn’t remember what it’s like to be a normal blade, all he knows is this cursed existence and yet he’s one of the LUCKY_ _ones despite it all, because he isn’t like Genis, his ruined flesh isn’t actively trying to destroy him._ )

“Blades view the issue much differently than humans do,” Kratos admits. Blades know what it’s like to be used. Humans? Humans never will, never can—at least, not the same way blades do.

“Humans shouldn’t view it differently at all,” Lloyd grumbles, flopping against his father’s side again. “Anyone should have looked at what they were doing to Zelos, to _Martel_ , and realized it was wrong.”

He did not save Martel, but he’s been her driver, which means he knows the pain she’s suffered as well as Kratos knows it. It leaves a foul taste on both their tongues.

(Kratos would wonder if Lloyd only cares so much about this because he knows Martel’s pain so intimately, but familiar words from another voice echo in his mind. Furious, indignant, shouted by a woman who knew less than half of the depth of the Aegises’ pain:

_“Any one of us could have—SHOULD have—stood up and said: No! We won’t allow this!”_

Anna would have gladly upended the world for the sake of both the humans and the blades that had been burned by the endless war, if only she’d had the power to do so.

Like mother, like son.)

“I suppose humanity just loved their war too much to care,” Kratos muses, a little bitter.

“Not all of us want it,” Lloyd argues. (These, too, are familiar words to Kratos.) Lloyd knows that _he_ certainly doesn’t, and truthfully, most of Iselia didn’t either, not really—some of them had strong opinions about so-called Tethe’allan scum, but every one of them had equally strong opinions about not wanting to get drafted into the army.

Lloyd sounds so petulant that Kratos laughs, reaching over and ruffling his son’s hair.

“I know,” he says. “Your mother taught me that.”

Lloyd pushes Kratos’ hand away, though he’s grinning. “Did she?” he asks, excitement brimming in his chest. He doesn’t hear Kratos speak about his mother, often.

“She did,” Kratos affirms. There’s still a lighthearted note in his voice, like speaking of Anna brings him peace. “Her and her group of rebels…”

“Rebels?” Lloyd says, mystified.

Kratos nods. “Deserters, fugitives, every visionary she could find who hated the war as much as she did…” A wistfulness is painted in Kratos’ words, one that Lloyd isn’t used to hearing often. “Not that there was much a group of twenty odd humans and blades could do to actually make a dent in stopping the war efforts, but they tried. She tried.”

(Sometimes, Kratos wonders if Lloyd has taken up his father’s old crusade, or his mother’s.)

“What… was she like? Mom,” Lloyd asks. A part of him aches to know everything Kratos does about these rebels, because he wants to know _everything_ there is to know about his mother, but he decides to start small.

Kratos is silent for a long moment, picking his words. Lloyd lets him. Maybe he should have asked a slightly more specific question, one easier for Kratos to answer, but…

“Anna was… the first human I ever trusted,” Kratos whispers slowly. “Perhaps even… the only human I’ve ever trusted.”

It’s not a lot, really. But somehow…

Somehow, it’s everything, and more.

Lloyd bathes in the weight of it, letting it sink in. Then he laughs, the weight kind of suffocating.

“Come on, Dad, you don’t trust me?” he asks, nudging Kratos playfully.

Kratos laughs a little too, brief and kind of winded. The look he shoots at Lloyd is somewhat disapproving, though. “Of course I do,” he says. “But, you’re my son, which makes the nature of the trust quite a bit different.”

“Hmm.” Lloyd thinks about protesting, but actually… “That’s fair,” he admits.

Kratos ruffles his hair again.

 

\- - - 

 

“You’re really comfortable,” Anna remarks.

Kratos looks up at her and hums, inquisitive.

“It’s just—I swear, you’re always so on edge,” she continues, and then: “Can I sit?” she asks, eyeing the spot on the couch next to him. He nods for her to go ahead, and she does, then keeps talking. “So I guess it’s kind of nice to see you relaxed, for once? Is it ‘cause we’re alone? I know you kind of hate crowds.”

“Mm,” Kratos says, because that’s not untrue, but it’s not the whole of it, either. “Truthfully, I think I am always on edge around humans.”

Anna raises her eyebrows at him. “ _I’m_ human.”

“Yes, well,” Kratos says, ducking his head down to hide his blush. “You’re different.”

“Different?” Anna asks, laughing, eyes twinkling with her disbelief and how absurd she thinks the notion is. And then— “Can I…?” she asks, reaching for Kratos’ hand.

Kratos laughs along with her, though his laugh is a little shorter. He takes her hand, locks their fingers together, then holds it up for her to see as his proof. “ _Different,_ ” he repeats.

The moment the realization hits her is frankly a beautiful moment to behold.

“That’s,” she says, and she’s grinning kind of lopsided, looking like she’s about to burst with some emotion Kratos is not privy to. “I mean, come on,” she protests, face turning away for as long as it takes her to gather her words. When she looks at him again it’s with fondness and exasperation. “I shouldn’t be your favorite person just because I respect your boundaries?? Any decent person should do that!!”

Kratos shrugs. “Well, you’re the first human I’ve met who’s even bothered to ask if I _have_ boundaries,” he says. “So… well, it makes it easier to be comfortable around you, for sure.”

“That’s—really sweet, what the hell,” Anna says, voice pitched somewhere between frustrated and fond. “But it also kind of pisses me off because I hate remembering that most humans treat blades like shit. _Why_ do we do that!”

Kratos doesn’t know, and doesn’t want to get into it. He laughs again, pulls Anna a little closer to him, so that she’s leaning against his side. “And _that’s_ why I trust you,” he whispers into her hair. He loves—that this upsets her, that she _cares_ , about him and everyone like him.

“Honestly I’d burn the whole world down if that’s what it took to make everyone stop being assholes,” Anna threatens, and Kratos laughs bright and clear.

 

\- - -

 

Colette wakes up in her bed, which, truthfully, wasn’t something she expected to do ever again.

Her confusion about not being dead is overshadowed by the sudden clenching of fear in her stomach. There’s a weight in her chest and something stronger weaker foreign about the flow of her ether. She stares up at her ceiling, and she feels like she’s going to be sick.

‘ _No no no no’_ something inside of her roars, something that grips at her throat as she pushes herself upright to look around her room. Sights that usually bring her comfort instead bring her dread. The taste of the ether in the air makes all the hairs on her skin stand up. She recognizes it. Of course she does. This is where she lives.

But she recognizes it for another reason, too. Something about the taste of the ether brings to her not just the sensation of home, but the sensation of _cold dark pain anger fear_ and Colette gasps and clutches an arm over her chest, trying to make sense of it.

‘ _Not again not again not AGAIN,’_ that thing inside of Colette roars. It sounds like. A woman’s voice? ‘ _I won’t let them—’_

Memories that aren’t hers flood Colette’s mind.

( _The inside of the cannon—she knows what it looks like because she’s been in it before, but the hum of it working is new and so is the sensation of hooks digging into her ether, the sensation of being pulled from and pain snaps across all her synapses, as something digs too deeply into her and pulls too much out of her and everything she knows blurs to white hot agony—_ )

Colette falls forward, hands clutched against her core crystal and bending over double, arms pinned between her legs and her chest. It’s hard to breathe.

 _What??_ she calls out, in her mind.

There’s a spark, a presence, pressing up against her.

‘ _Who are you?’_ is the response, frantic, horrified. ‘ _Where- What happened to—!?’_

The memories seize Colette again.

( _An eruption of pain in her core crystal, horror flooding her as every ether link tied to her snaps at once. The connections to her beloved, to her brother, to her best and oldest friend. Gone, in an instant._

 _And then so is she._ )

When Colette’s vision clears she finds herself standing in front of her bedroom mirror, eyes wide and green. They are not meant to be green. She watches her reflection run fingers over her core crystal, though she does not make the conscious wish to do so and the sensation filtered through her fingers is distant. She, too, finds herself mesmerized.

What used to be completely pink is now primarily green, pink filling in cracks and missing pieces, held together through some abomination of fused ether. Bile rises to her throat at the sight, though Colette cannot say she is sure why it unsettles her so much, because… she asked for this, didn’t she?

“What did they _do_?”

Her mouth forms the words, but it is not her voice that comes out.

Colette doesn’t know, exactly, what they did. But she offers up a memory, in explanation.

( _Back rigid sitting on the cold chair staring at the broken crystal on the table as sadness filled her core, offering herself up to fix it, not knowing what that meant and not really caring, either, because even oblivion would be better than the life she had—)_

Colette watches her reflection stagger backward from the mirror, feels her hand move to clasp against her mouth like someone else is moving it, watches tears fill eyes that are still, for some reason, green.

Colette thinks she understands, now.

 _My name’s Colette,_ she calls out into the mindspace she now shares with another blade. _What’s yours?_

There’s a long time before she gets a response.

_‘Martel.’_

**\- - -**

Zelos lays on his back in a field of grass. The sky is painted a brilliant orange by the sunset. It’s… calm. Warm. Peaceful. Makes him feel like he’s home, though he’s never really… had a home. Not one he’s ever liked much, anyway, for all the posh his cage in Tethe’alla’s facilities had.

He’s dreaming, he knows. The air is too still and too quiet for this to be the waking world. It kind of… sets him on edge, actually.

The stillness reminds him of closed rooms and white walls, loneliness and—

The sky erupts with blue.

Zelos squints at it, though he shouldn’t be surprised. Dreams are like this. Transient, often changing. The grass around him turns yellow, dead. The air stirs. There’s a kind of jolt in his core crystal, paired with the phantom sensation of fingers brushing against it, though there sure as hell isn’t anyone he can _see_ close enough to touch him.

Zelos bolts upright. The feeling persists, but he’s distracted by the figure who stands in the grass ten feet before him.

Mithos.

Mithos, smile too wide and eyes too big.

“How the _hell_ are you here?” Zelos demands. The dreamspace is for Aegises, yes, but he was pretty sure their dreams could only intersect if they were connected, and Mithos sure as hell isn’t in the same loop that ties him to Martel and Colette.

Mithos just smiles, laughs. “You know, for all that talk about guarding you, your friends really had no trouble leaving you alone, huh?” he says.

Zelos shivers. He’d been out in the field of that Addam guy’s farm, watching stars with that blade named Mythra, he remembers now. He guesses he dozed off? And she just _left_ him out there? The sensation ghosting against his core crystal makes sense now, though. In the real world, Mithos must be—

“What do you want?” Zelos demands.

“You already know,” Mithos answers.

Zelos glares at the boy.

“What? And you aren’t just going to kill me and take it?” he asks.

“Hm.” Mithos hesitates, his smile faltering, but not vanishing. He rocks back and forth from his toes to his heels, hands held rigid at his sides. “I promised… I would try something different.”

Zelos raises his eyebrows. “Promised who?”

Mithos doesn’t answer, just rocks. His eyes are distant, not focused on Zelos. The sky flickers with light and color, patches of rainbow tearing it open. It’s bright. Hurts Zelos’ eyes. Mithos’ core crystal glows with that same rainbow light, infinitely and infuriatingly distracting. It draws Zelos’ eyes in, no matter how hard he tries to look elsewhere.

For some reason, he thinks of another little boy, one he scared off with his crass mouth.

“Where’s Genis?” Zelos asks. “Is he with you?”

“He’s at home, waiting,” Mithos answers. There’s a wistful note in his voice. Wind blows across the field, pushing yellowed grass up against Zelos’ legs.

Zelos laughs, surprised and unsurprised all at once. For once the grin on Mithos’ face looks… natural. Sane.

“You haven’t hurt him, have you?” Zelos presses, just to make sure, just for Raine’s sake.

Mithos goes rigid and totally still, eyes snapping back into focus as they settle on Zelos, his features twisting for a moment in indignation. “I would never,” he spits, and that’s what Zelos thought, but it’s nice to have the confirmation. “That’s not the point, anyway!” The sky above them trembles, cracks with his anger. “I’m here for _you,_ Zelos.”

Zelos shrugs with his palms out. Thinks about calling his sword, decides against it.

“And what makes you think I’d just hand my core crystal over?” he laughs.

The smile Mithos fixes upon him is gentle, despite the manic in his eyes.

“Because you want to be free.”

The sky above them shatters, a million pieces of broken glass falling down around them as grass becomes nothing and everything becomes void. Zelos forgets how to breathe. The concept of freedom clutches in his chest, sings like a birdsong in the distance. Through a descending piece of glass he sees a hill he and Sheena sat on once, overlooking a valley below. Through another, the inside of the cannon. Zelos turns his head away.

“Don’t you?” Mithos’ voice floats across the void. He cocks his head to the side, curious, still smiling. “Aren’t you tired of humanity’s folly? Of playing your part in their war?”

Circles of black glass reflected through falling mirrors. Echoes of pain bubbling in Zelos’ ether. The only light here now comes from the mirrors, and from Mithos’ Architect-forsaken crystal.

“Look at them,” Mithos calls, descending mirrors playing back images of soldiers marching, blades dying, towns burning. “Endlessly setting fires and chasing oblivion. All they want to do is destroy themselves, and you’re just a tool in that—a tool that was created only to destroy.”

( _Fire in his veins shovels in his stomach digging too deep and tossing all his ether into that fucking cannon, lights shining down on him stage under his feet a web of lies spun from his mouth because of course the war mattered of course winning mattered of course of course of course—_ he didn’t give a fuck.)

Zelos wants to claw at his hair cover his ears shield himself from the cacophony under his skin, but he can’t move. He’s frozen by the weight of Mithos’ gaze, blue eyes reflecting rainbow light.

“But I could give you new purpose,” Mithos continues. He steps forward, moving effortlessly through the void that suspends them. “Wouldn’t you like that? You don’t have to be a tool of destruction anymore. You could give _life_. You would bring _freedom._ ”

The promise wraps its hands around Zelos’ lungs, steals the air from his throat.

He could do something good, for once in his life.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

His power being used for… _good_.

“Aren’t you excited?”

Mithos takes another step forward, his voice like a song.

“Aren’t you happy?”

Birds chirp in Zelos’ chest. He sways in the void, cradled by warmth and the endless possibilities of a simple promise. Broken mirrors display serenity and peace. Sprawling fields. Endless ocean. Quiet, free of humanity’s destruction.

Zelos inhales, the sharp, intoxicating scent of fresh air filling his nostrils.

Wouldn’t it be nice…?

“You’re going to be free, too.”

Mithos’ fingers touch Zelos’ core crystal.

Zelos snaps out of his reverie.

It’s all…

_Wrong._

Zelos reaches until his fingers clasp around what he needs, gripping onto the sensation and willing it to manifest, orange light coalescing in his palm. It’s difficult, navigating the flows of ether and stepping halfway into the waking world while remaining planted firmly in the dreamspace. With his free hand, he tugs Mithos’ fingers away from his core crystal.

And Zelos smiles.

“Please,” he laughs. “Lloyd already sets me free.”

Mithos’ eyes narrow in confusion, then go wide in pain and horror.

Zelos pushes his sword a little deeper into Mithos’ core crystal.

There’s a tremble through Mithos’ body, a tremble that Zelos feels under his fingertips. He expected Mithos’ eyes to go dark, but they do not. A blow like that should have killed any blade, damaged them beyond repair, but Mithos—

The two of them are slammed out of the dreamspace and into the waking world.

Mithos stumbles away from Zelos, and Zelos lets out a triumphant laugh that dies halfway through. Mithos… _ripples,_ like a pond disrupted by a stone, his physical form wavering and then settling. How the hell is he still _alive_.

“Ah,” Mithos says, and then he laughs. “Ahaha, ha.” It’s broken, staggering. Looking at him hurts Zelos’ eyes. The way light bends around Mithos is unnatural, impossible, because the twin moons and stars above do not give nearly enough light to create that effect.

“What the _hell_?” Zelos growls, horrified.

Mithos runs shaking fingers over his cracked core crystal. The largest blue chunk has gone completely dark, as have a few shards surrounding it.

But the rest of the shards still glow.

“So they saved me, like I saved them,” he whispers.

“What does that—Forget it!” Zelos decides he doesn’t care. He jumps to his feet, readies his sword again. Maybe he didn’t kill Mithos with that singular stab. Fine. He’ll just have to strike again.

Mithos’ head snaps up, and he leaps away from Zelos. He doesn’t land. His feet remain suspended off the ground with a sudden flap of glowing wings.

“H- _Hey!_ ” Zelos shouts.

The wings are beautiful, in a strange, twisted way. It’s like someone has broken stained glass and spread the shards out behind Mithos in the semblance of wings. They bend the light unnaturally, too. Zelos has to shield his eyes.

Mithos doesn’t move other than his wings flapping slowly. He remains suspended, a distrustful glare sent down at Zelos but nothing more, like there’s something broken in him, code that isn’t running right. It lasts for two, three seconds, and then—

“Zelooooos!” comes Lloyd’s voice, from afar.

Mithos shakes his head. Propels himself up into the night.

Zelos collapses into the grass.

 

\- - -

 

“That was… really brave of you, you know?” Colette says.

Zelos laughs like he doesn’t believe her. “Not really,” he says. “I just wanted it to be over, found myself in a position to end it—”

“That’s brave,” Colette interjects.

Her brother Aegis turns to her, eyebrows raised. He’s making that face he makes when he thinks she’s being dumb or silly, and Colette scowls in its wake, not really appreciating being belittled like this. She presses on.

“It _is,_ ” she insists, trying not to feel embarrassed. She wishes he’d stop looking at her like that. “I wish… I wish I was brave enough to do something like that,” she admits, turning her head away.

She absently runs her own fingers over her ether lines in the growing light of the sunrise, shame and something else, something wistful, bubbling up in her chest. It probably passes along their shared ether, but Colette lets it, too tired and not caring enough to try and keep it hidden.

She and Zelos sit out in Addam’s field, away from everyone. (Colette could tell Zelos was getting overwhelmed, having to answer all those questions about Mithos, and while maybe she should have let Seles drag him away, she wanted to talk to him.)

( _Martel is distant, uncomfortable, trying to give Colette the privacy, so she (mostly) isn’t here right now, leaving Zelos and Colette truly alone._ )

Colette can feel Zelos’ gaze on her neck, and she bristles under it, too nervous to look at him. For a moment, anyway. Colette doesn’t consider herself very brave in the traditional sense, but she hates letting her anxieties prevent her from interacting with people. So slowly, Colette looks up and meets violet eyes—

Zelos’ gaze is sharp, but so too is it fond.

“Sweetheart, what are you talking about?” he asks, smiling, looking a little bewildered. “Just _being_ here is already the bravest thing you’ve ever done.”

Colette squints at him and cocks her head, not understanding.

“You ran away, didn’t you?” Zelos clarifies, leaning towards her. The wind stirs around them, carrying with it the reminder of her freedom. “Even I wasn’t brave enough to do that.”

Colette ducks her head down, ether rising to her cheeks in her shame. “Neither was I, really,” she whispers, running her thumb over her core crystal. “It was Martel’s idea, not mine.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t stop her, and I know you could have,” Zelos counters. He reaches over and squeezes her shoulder. “That’s brave.”

“Hm,” Colette says.

The sun rises steadily before them, dyeing the clouds a breathtaking pink. The wind blows again, and Zelos closes his eyes against it, looking content, happy. Colette wishes she could, but fingers still pressed to her core crystal, all the wind does is make her feel cold. An uncomfortable reminder thrums along her ether.

“Do… you ever feel it?” Colette asks her brother, staring at the rising sun until her retinas burn. “The _tick tock, tick tock_.”

Zelos doesn’t open his eyes or look at her, but she can feel him go rigid, feel the discomfort bleed along their linked ether.

“ _Go back, go back…_?” he echoes, in the same cadence, then hums. It’s not a pleasant hum. It’s a frustrated one. After a second, he laughs, turning it into a joke like he always does. “Yeah,” he answers, voice breaking around his anger. “Fucked up what they did to us, huh?”

Colette laughs back, empty.

“Yeah,” she says.

She pulls her eyes away from the sun.

The wind is cold. Zelos’ grip on her shoulder is a little too tight, but she can’t bear telling him to let go. They sit in the stillness of the morning, anxiety and anger and sorrow on a feedback loop through their cores, until…

Colette sighs. Smiles.

“It’s okay, though,” she insists. “We’re going to fix it. Somehow.”

“Yeah?” Zelos asks—mostly humoring her, she thinks, but there’s something genuine bleeding along their ether.

“Yeah,” Colette says.

That, and nothing more, but a promise from their driver rings in both their memories. A boy who wants to make the world better. A boy who wants to save bladekind. A boy they trust, more than anything else.

(Except maybe each other.)

 

\- - -

 

“Sorry,” Zelos whispers, finding a little trouble looking Martel in the face.

She cocks her head at him. “For what?” she asks, like there’s any possible answer to that that isn’t _stabbing your little brother_. Her voice is tight. Her fists are clenched. Obviously she’s upset. But she’s smiling—tight-lipped and bitter, but still a smile—like nothing’s wrong.

“I just. I didn’t want him to…” Zelos fumbles for the words, though it’s really a lot more than not wanting to have his core crystal stolen. He stabbed Mithos because he wanted it to be over. He wanted to protect everyone.

“I understand, really, Zelos,” Martel says. “It’s fine.”

(It’s clearly not, but he lets her walk away.)

 

\- - -

 

Mithos lands with a thud and a skid at the top of his tower, where Genis waits. Terror’s claws grip at Genis’ chest as he runs to where his- his- ( _words to describe Mithos and what Mithos is to him are difficult, hard to grasp, because it’s more than just friend but—_ ) where Mithos falls, kneeling down beside him.

Mithos lays on his back, shuddering for a moment—and more than just his body shudders, his _shape_ seems to shudder, like a ripple in reality. His wings lay out behind him for a few seconds, glowing and fluttering wearily, and Genis’ heart twists at the sight. He’s seen the wings before, but not like _this_ , broken as they are. They hurt to look at. Genis regrets to admit he’s glad when they vanish, but it’s easier to focus his eyes on Mithos without the wings’ glaring light framing him.

“Mithos…?” Genis asks, cautiously, moving closer on his knees. He reaches out, though he’s not sure what to do, where to touch. He’s not a healing blade.

Mithos groans, low and in pain, then he laughs. It’s off-kilter, high-pitched and grating. Genis flinches a little. Mithos pitches himself upright with over-balanced movements, nearly collapsing into his knees before he rights himself. He reaches up to cradle his core crystal, and as his delicate fingers brush against it, Genis realizes what the problem is.

Rainbow light is interrupted by patches of darkness. A crack spreads from the center outwards. One of the chunks of light touched by the growing crack flickers, dims.

Sickness bubbles up in Genis’ throat, because this is _bad bad bad_ and he doesn’t know what to _do_ —

“What happened?” he asks. Mithos looks about ready to fall over again, so Genis grabs him by the arm to steady him. The sensation is like ice cold water stabbing his fingertips, and the contact sends a jolt of electricity up through Genis’ ether to his brain, playing back a garbage song. He shudders, but the sensation stops after a second, so he doesn’t let go.

“Bastard Aegis stabbed me,” Mithos spits, somewhere between angry and—it’s hard, describing what the sharp laughter contributes to this picture, but it makes Genis immensely uncomfortable.

So, too, does the news.

“Zelos…?” he guesses, then realizes it doesn’t matter. “What were you even _doing_ there?” he demands, something sharp and uncomfortable digging itself up against his heart. “You said- you said you’d find another way! You _promised_.”

A garbage song repeating again in Genis’ mind almost makes him miss Mithos’ answer.

“If Zelos wanted to give himself up willingly, who was I to stop him?” Mithos counters. The words are garbled, but maybe that’s just the jolts of electricity that sing their broken song in Genis’ veins. It feels like icicles are digging into his palm. “Progress requires sacrifice.”

That sharpness pressing into his heart burns until it _hurts,_ as the reality of what’s going on begins to dawn on Genis.

“What happened to asking the Architect?” he asks. “You didn’t even _try_.”

“He was never going to listen.”

“So you _lied_ to me!?”

Tears make Genis’ vision blur, and he feels stupid, stupid for trusting, stupid for hoping, stupid for being so upset—but that sharpness in his heart is agony, the stinging pain of betrayal, and it _hurts._ It hurts _so much_. He lets go of Mithos’ arm. Crosses his wrists over his chest, like that could protect him.

“I don’t see why you care about the bastard Aegises,” Mithos argues. “They were never meant to exist to begin with!” Words so cold shouldn’t sound as bright and delighted as Mithos delivers them with. He smiles, crooked, eyes unfocused, not looking at Genis, not looking at anything. “Their existence is a _burden,_ to others and to themselves. They both crave freedom. I’m just offering that to them.”

Genis begins to think Mithos might be too far gone to argue with, but he argues anyway, because Colette and Zelos are his _friends._

“By _shattering_ them?” Genis counters, the absurdity of it all calling up the taste of bile on his tongue.

Mithos just smiles. “Neither of them want to be alive.”

Genis doubts that, but he can sense a dead end well enough, so he tries something else.

“What about Martel?” he asks around the burning in his throat, anger boiling in his gut. He’s terrified of the answer Mithos will give, but he _has to know_. “Are you just going to shatter her, too?”

Mithos’ eyes darken. “This world has no room for traitors.”

Genis stops breathing.

Sickness and fury roar to life within him. Genis recoils.

“She’s your _sister_!!” he screams in protest.

“And she _betrayed_ me,” Mithos spits back, fire and pain in his voice that Genis _understands,_ because he’s feeling betrayed right now, and being betrayed by your _sister_ of all people must be the worst feeling ever, but—

Thinking it was fine, if you killed her? How did you even _convince_ yourself of that?

“Mithos—”

“You understand, don’t you!?” Mithos demands.

He grabs Genis by the wrist and pulls him close. Genis yelps, tears burning in his eyes. Mithos’ touch is _scalding._ Genis grits his teeth against the cacophony of garbage signals coursing through him, Mithos’ touch incomprehensible to both human senses and blade processor.

“Raine betrayed you, too—” Mithos begins.

“She did _not_!” Genis protests, trying to pry Mithos’ fingers off of him. It _hurts._ More than that, it makes him feel shaky, unstable. Like claws are digging under his skin and trying to tear him to shreds. Like something has snaked into his very core and threatens to unravel him entirely.

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” Mithos presses, bringing his face close to Genis’.

Genis turns his head away, screwing his eyes shut. Looking at Mithos, especially at this proximity, _burns._

“No!” he snaps. “Raine did nothing wrong! She just did her best in a hard situation and it _sucks_ but what happened to me is _not_ her fault!” He finally manages to get purchase on Mithos’ fingers—he knows that’s what they are but they don’t even register properly as fingers to his brain, it’s just more garbage—and yank them away from his wrist. He can think a little clearer, now. He pushes a little further. “And _Martel_ ,” he insists, with all of his conviction. “Martel did nothing wrong, either! She’s just fighting for what she believes in.”

Mithos scoffs, high and angry. “Brainwashed by a human,” he grumbles.

Genis jumps to his feet just to put distance between himself and the damaged Aegis sitting before him. “Is it _wrong_ to want blades and humans to live in harmony—in _actual_ harmony?”

Mithos’ eyes follow him, wide and full of fury. “I thought you hated humans!”

“I _do_!” Genis spits back. “But wanting to destroy all of them just because some of them are bad, just because- just because _one_ hurt me—that’s ridiculous!”

Mithos gets to his feet, too. Genis staggers backwards, afraid of Mithos’ unraveling drawing him in again. He watches, horrified, as another chunk of Mithos’ crystal goes dim, and Mithos’ entire shape ripples a second time. It’s even harder to look at him now.

“And what about all those humans who sacrificed blades for their endless war?” Mithos demands, swiping one hand through the air while the other pounds at his chest. “What about the ones that used Martel and I the way they did? Who built the Aegis cannons? What about _those_ humans!?”

Genis understands Mithos’ fury and pain, he really does, and Mithos isn’t wrong in wanting those humans to be punished, but…

 _But_.

“And how many blades have _you_ sacrificed, Mithos?” Genis asks.

Mithos takes a step back, eyes narrowing. Genis’ heart pounds double-time, nervous as he raises the gavel to bring it back down.

“How many?” Genis demands, as if he doesn’t know. He’s seen the rooms lined with dormant core crystals. He’s met the handful— _handful—_ of blades that Mithos has successfully saved. “How many have died to further your experiments? What makes _you_ any better than the humans!?”

Genis watches, as Mithos cracks.

“At least I have a _reason!_ ” Mithos wails. “At least _I’m_ trying to build something better for us! The _humans_!? They just want _war!_ ”

Genis grits his teeth. His ether runs so, so, so cold.

“It’s still murder,” he whispers.

Mithos screams.

He screams, and he reaches out his hand to call his sword. It does not come. Unused, broken energy thrashes at his fingertips in its place. Connections struggle to be made but do not succeed. Sparks of rainbow ether come off his cracked crystal. He tries again.

Genis’ stomach clenches, his head pounding. Fear and something else crawl up his spinal cord. Something sharper. Heightened.

“Mithos,” he says, tongue beginning to formulate a plea.

Mithos gives up trying to manifest his sword. He tosses the gathered, writhing at ether at Genis instead. Genis summons his own weapon to block, though he’s not sure it will do anything, though he’s not sure it will—

It doesn’t matter.

Presea slides between the two of them, catching the ether with the blade of her axe and tossing it aside.

“Enough,” she says, voice shaking with a resolute fury.

“Presea!?” Mithos shouts. Genis thinks he sees Mithos recoil, but Presea’s shape mostly blocks his view of Mithos. “What- What are you- Are you- Are you-” He seems to get stuck on it, voice repeating syllables as whatever’s been broken in him struggles to keep up with the thoughts that whirl in his head. “Are you betraying me too?” he manages, finally.

Presea lifts her head up. She’s facing Genis, towering over him, protecting him.

“I’m tired, Mithos,” she says, level and cold. Her eyes are dim, and there is no joy in her face. “I’m tired of being lied to. I’m tired of you lying.”

Mithos’ voice, sharp and furious, cuts through the early morning.

“You _said_ you’d _follow_ me!” he accuses, recalling a promise that Genis was not there to hear the making of.

“Only as far as I could,” Presea clarifies. She straightens, back still to Mithos. “But how can I follow someone who doesn’t trust his companions—someone who _actively deceives them_?”

“I—” Mithos says dumbly, and then again: “ _I—_ ” But he seems to get stuck there, too.

“I’m done, Mithos,” Presea says.

“Presea…” Genis says softly, confused, a little scared. This has escalated much further than he wanted it to, and the uncertainty of the future from here fills him with terror and dread.

Presea smiles at him, though, gentle. ( _Raine smiled at him like that, too, as his driver died under her hands._ ) “Let’s go, Genis,” Presea says.

Genis takes a step back.

“But, we-” he stammers, “we can’t just- we can’t just _leave_ him.”

Mithos is broken and hurting, even if he is completely mad. Genis isn’t sure he can leave him to fall completely apart all on his own.

“We can’t reason with him,” Presea argues, eyes dark and determined. ( _Genis has seen Raine’s eyes like that, too_.)

“I- I know, but,” Genis whispers.

Presea shakes her head. “He’s too far gone, Genis,” she says. Behind her, Mithos repeats the same syllable in a broken loop. Sadness flickers over Presea’s face, but her eyes do not change. She knows exactly what she’s going to do. “I don’t- I don’t _really_ want to leave him, either.” ( _How can she? She knows his excited smiles and quiet giggles, the idealistic boy curled up in the library hatching plans that sounded too big for any one person to carry out, but this was_ Mithos, _and now he was broken and dying and it pained her to turn her back on him, but—_ ) “But he tried to attack you,” Presea reminds both Genis and herself. “If lying to your face wasn’t already too far…”

She has a point. It doesn’t make Genis any more okay with what’s going on.

“I will pick you up and carry you if I have to, Genis,” Presea threatens. “Do not make me.”

She still has to grab him by the hand and drag him off, but he follows. He follows, and he wonders how Mithos fell this far…

Or if maybe he’d already fallen before Genis even met him.


	5. Chapter 5

Mithos falls to his knees in a city of glass. The light of his wings and his core crystal send rainbow light refracting through the skyscrapers, blanketed by a sea of glimmering stars.

Everything

_Hurts_

Connections keep trying to meet in his mind, fail. His fingers feel like they’re going to slip straight through the ground. That’s impossible, right? Ha ha. Ha.

He’s broken beyond repair, isn’t he?

The ether that flows through his veins is hot is cold makes him sick to his stomach. None of it is his anymore, is it? Borrowed ether from blades he saved, blades he thought he saved, blades whose core crystals are holding him together right now.

( _But for how much longer?_ )

He stares at his hands. They tremble. Refract like light. He tries to close them into fists. He can’t tell if he managed.

“What… was I _doing_?” he whispers to himself, and then he laughs.

He laughs, and he laughs, and he laughs.

He’s so cold.

( _He’s going to die up here, isn’t he?_ )

He falls to his side and curls in on himself. Is he laughing or is he crying? Even he can’t tell anymore. Every movement, every breath, is agony. He tries to cling to what he has left, but it slips through his grasp more and more with each passing second.

He’s scared.

 _Martel,_ he calls, in his soul. It hurts to even part his lips, so he doesn’t. _Sis, please._

_I’m sorry._

_I’m so sorry._

 

\- - -

 

The endless sea of yellow grass crunches under their feet. In the distance, a tower stands, blocking out the low-hanging morning sun, casting a dark shadow over the field before them. It will be a few more minutes of walking before they reach the base of the tower itself.

Martel stops.

“Isn’t this…?” she begins, but isn’t sure how to phrase the question.

Kratos stops beside her.

“Yes,” he answers.

This is where they’d tried to settle down, after the war. Where they’d built a home—a home that Mithos has turned into a fortress.

She died in this very field.

The thought makes something sick stir in her stomach—less the memory of dying, more the reality of what Mithos has done. They’d had a house, here. Small. Cozy. Just big enough to fit the four of them and the library. And now…

Martel clenches her hands. Unclenches them.

( _Mithos might die in this field, too._ )

“Maybe we should take a minute, make sure we’re prepared!” Lloyd calls, from up ahead. Likely, he feels Martel’s anxieties.

“And maybe discuss what the hell we plan on doing,” Sheena adds, hands on her hips. “Are we talking to Mithos? Fighting him?”

( _It wouldn’t even be a fair fight, the one of him against the ten of them._ )

“If he’s even still…” Zelos begins, feels Martel’s flare of anxiety, shuts his mouth.

( _Mithos might die, before they even reach him._ )

Martel opens her mouth. Closes it again. She wonders if it’s too selfish. Too foolish. She doesn’t want him to die, but…

 _‘We could always…’_ Colette whispers, inside of her. The thought is tainted by fear and uncertainty both, but the unspoken words are conveyed with images. Back straight in a cold chair, staring at a fractured emerald core crystal laid out on the table before her. Martel knows what Colette is offering.

She’s touched, but she can’t say she agrees—at least not the way Colette does.

 _It would surely kill one of us,_ Martel argues.

Colette does not voice any further thoughts, but Martel can feel them resound within their shared mind. Are you okay with that? Am I okay with that? What would you do, to save him? How badly do you want to? Do I want to let you go? Can I?

Which one of us is leaving?

Martel squeezes her eyes shut and turns her head away from the cacophony.

 _Colette…_ she whispers.

‘ _Sorry,_ ’ she gets in return.

Martel clenches her fists. Unclenches them.

( _She could die again, on this field._

 _Would anyone let her?_ )

“Genis!” Raine shouts, suddenly. Martel’s head snaps up, watches her friend drop her things and sprint across the field to meet her little brother. Raine scoops Genis up in a hug and spins him around—their laughter echoing across the dead field.

The girl with Genis—Presea, Colette remembers Kratos calling her—watches for a second, then meets eyes with Martel. She crosses the distance between them.

“Are you… Martel?” Presea asks, cautiously.

Martel nods.

Presea smiles. It’s a tired smile, tainted by sadness. “It’s nice to meet you,” she says. “Mithos…” And then she trails off, smile fading. “He… Are you going to him?”

Martel nods, again. “Of course I am,” she says.

He’s her little brother.

Presea nods with her, understanding. There’s a heaviness on her shoulders, though. “He’s… I’m not sure he’s…” She tries, but fumbles with the words. “His core crystal was damaged…”

“I know,” Martel says. She pushes down the bitter stab of brief anger she feels towards Zelos. Zelos had every right. ( _That was still her little brother._ )

“I didn’t know what to do for him,” Presea admits. “I don’t think there was anything _I_ could have done for him. And besides, he… Well. Nothing I say will stop you from going.” It’s not a question. Presea knows this as well as Martel does.

Martel wonders if Presea has a sibling, too.

“Thank you for looking after him,” Martel says, offering Presea a small smile.

Presea blinks, like she hadn’t expected that at all.

“Oh. You’re welcome.” She smiles shakily at Martel, then slowly turns back towards the tower. She points towards the very top of it. “Mithos is probably still—”

_“Martel.”_

Martel stops.

 _‘Isn’t that…?’_ Colette asks.

_“Please, sis.”_

“Mithos…?” she whispers, as if she could possibly mistake her brother’s voice.

Presea lets her hand fall, head tilting to the side as she considers Martel.

“Martel? What is it?” Kratos asks, stepping up beside her.

Martel slowly twists her head, listening, trying to pinpoint the source of the signal. “Mithos… He’s calling me…” she answers, distracted. The signal resonates loud and clear within her, her brother’s voice calling, pulling her towards—The tower…? No. It’s much more distant than that. Her eyes slide past the tower, to the right, where the twin moons hang, about to set.

Of course.

“Calling you?” Kratos echoes, a patient question.

Martel nods, still listening. The rest she doesn’t hear, but feels in her bones. The signal shakes, terror threaded thickly through it. Mithos is alone. He’s scared. He needs her.

“We- we have to go,” Martel insists, gathering the signal up in her fingers and holding it tight, like she could squeeze her brother’s hand for reassurance. “I have to—”

Kratos nods, steps forward. “Then let’s go.”

Martel shakes her head.

“He’s not there,” she says, gesturing with her chin to the tower. “Not anymore.”

Presea squints at her. Kratos raises his eyebrows. Colette goes cold, as the weight of the realization washes over her.

“Then where is he?” Presea asks.

Martel raises her hand, pointing past the tower and to the smaller of the two moons.

“Derris-Kharlan,” she whispers.

Home.

 

\- - -

 

Lights blur in her vision, blur through what she can see through Martel’s eyes. Colette shivers in her pocket of their mindspace. The ether here tastes… wrong. Cleaner? Different. Pristine and calculated and old and like _home._ Rainbows refracted off glass on all sides. Martel feels wistful. More at peace than she ever has, as their shared body inhales. Martel seems to enjoy the ache it elicits in their lungs, or maybe Colette’s imagining the ache.

It’s hard to pay attention.

( _“Ow! Lloyd, be more careful!” Kratos’ voice, stern, but distant and echo-y to Colette’s ears._

_“Sheena dared me!”_

_“What!? I- I definitely did not—!”_ )

Colette tries to pull their shared gaze towards Sheena, wanting to judge if she’s lying, but Martel doesn’t budge, attention rapt on shimmering glass that she yearns, yearned for.

 _You’ve… missed this place a lot, haven’t you?_ Colette asks, conversationally. It’s all she can do, distracted otherwise by the spots in her awareness, the pull in their shared bones not unlike the tick tock tick tock Colette’s very familiar with.

‘ _Of course I have,’_ Martel answers. ‘ _But… I guess you wouldn’t understand that, would you?’_

(After all, Colette and Zelos both define home not by a place, but by a person.)

 _Guess not,_ Colette answers.

It stirs anxieties in her chest, makes Martel respond with a somewhat distracted sense of sadness and something fond. The pulse like morse code on her forehead makes Colette itchy, sick, though it doesn’t belong to her, it’s Martel’s, and Martel can have it.

It’s important, anyway. Where they’re heading towards.

( _“How much further?” Yuan’s voice, distorted through Colette’s haze, but the edge in it is unmistakable._

“Not much, I think,” _Martel replies_.)

And she wants to help Martel, she really does. That’s the whole reason she’s here. Still here. Colette already has what she wanted, the thing she didn’t ask for but got anyway, and so what else is there _for_ her to do?

Martel has something she wants, though. A brother she wants to see.

( _Mithos Mithos Mithos—thoughts spin endlessly in Colette’s head—rainbow light swirls in her vision—worry worry worry—a pulse a pull a call—_ Martel pushes all the thoughts away, grabs onto that pulsing, hand over hand pulling herself along it like it’s a rope.)

Helping her get there, helping her see this through…

That’s the least Colette can do, right? After all Martel’s done for her?

 

\- - -

 

They find Mithos on his hands and knees amidst pillars of glass, the remaining shards of his core crystal casting a broken rainbow on the floor that refracts and bounces off the surrounding glass. The effect bathes Mithos in a rainbow light much brighter than he glows on his own.

Martel approaches him first, ether burning in her throat. It’s all wrong wrong wrong, the shape of his face, the angles of his body, too sharp too jagged every piece of him misaligned with reality. It makes her sick to see.

“Oh, Mithos…” she says.

Mithos doesn’t move, his broken body remaining as it is, as if a single movement would risk dislodging him entirely.

“Hey, sis,” he answers. “You… You came…”

“Of course I did.”

(Like she could do anything else.)

Mithos laughs, off-kilter and broken. “I thought- I thought you were mad at me.”

“Mithos…” Martel’s voice catches, words dying in her mouth. She disagreed with him, still does, but now… isn’t the time. She aches to run her fingers through his hair, to calm him with soothing touches, but Genis warned her. Instead her eyes settle on his crystal, watch as one of the shards flickers. “What have you _done_ …” she whispers, words tainted by sadness, horror. “What were you _thinking_?”

“I would have- ha, aha- I would have. Set us free,” Mithos answers, voice cracking, words broken and punctuated by laughs. He won’t stop smiling. _(He can’t stop smiling. Every atom in his body feels like its burning._ )

“You would have killed yourself trying!” Martel counters, horrified.

Mithos just laughs, and laughs. “That’s fine,” he says, grinning from ear to ear. That flickering shard in his chest goes dark, and he _ripples,_ the entire shape of his body pulled sharply one direction, then another, before it settles. “If it- If it freed everyone else—” He laughs, clutching himself. “That’s fine! I would have- been fine with that.”

( _He’s dying up here._

_But Martel is with him._

_So that’s alright._ )

He smiles, softly. “What- what a shame that I… didn’t get to…”

Even the shape of his voice ripples, bounces off the surrounding glass and sends a distorted echo back. He laughs at the sound of it, and that adds to the stuttering cacophony for a moment, until it all goes silent.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. ( _Sorry he didn’t succeed. Sorry that all the horrible things he did were for nothing._ ) It’s too much to voice, too much to process, so he just touches his forehead to the ground, tears leaking from his eyes as he laughs. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Martel whispers, soothing. The fact she can’t touch him is destroying her as much as touching him might have. She wants to help him.

 _‘We can…’_ Colette offers, but Martel counters with an immediate, firm: _No we can’t._

(Her core aches. She wants to. But she cannot decide between Colette and Mithos—not if only one of them gets to live. It’s a choice too cruel to make.)

“It’s… really not okay,” Mithos laughs, and he… Straightens. It takes him some effort, and he sways where he sits, eyes glassy for a moment. He’s sweating and falling apart, broken rainbows cast off from him. He sits for a moment, stuck, eyes searching the crowd before him, needing to find faces he can’t quite make out, can’t quite process correctly.

“Mithos…?” Martel asks.

( _Everyone lets her have this, lets her do this. It’s her brother. The rest of them are only here because it would be wrong not to follow her all the way. And if something goes wrong—if they have to fight…_

_But could they, really? Could they fight this broken, dying boy?_

_Could any of them in good conscious finish striking him down?_ )

“Mithos,” Martel continues, fretting, “I know- I know that things… _look_ bad, and I don’t know if I can fix them, but—”

He shakes his head.

( _That’s not what he meant._ )

His eyes finally focus on Kratos’ face.

“I… I guess… Genis was right…” Mithos says, and he laughs. “I really am no better than humanity, am I? I was- I- I…” He stops a second, either stuck again or unsure of what to say. “Kratos. Presea. I’m sorry. I was using you both for some awful things, wasn’t I?”

They exchange glances. Presea slowly walks closer to the front of the group, brushing past Botta, Zelos, Raine.

Kratos turns away from her and back to his old blade, his brother, his oldest friend.

“It’s… not entirely your fault,” Kratos tries, unable to let Mithos to bear this blame alone. “I could have turned my back on you at any time.”

“Could you have? Could you have, really?” Mithos counters, with burning eyes and a wide smile, knowing how right he is and basking in it. “We both know the answer is no. We both know I would have never let you go.”

Kratos flinches, turning away.

Mithos stops smiling.

“I’m sorry,” he says. He closes and opens his hands. A broken laugh leaves him, kind of scared, nervous. ( _What else are you supposed to do, when you’re confronted with the millions of wrong decisions you made?_ )

Kratos hesitates, trying to capture the flow of words in his mind.

( _Words were never really his strong suit, but these words are ones he’s worried over for a long time_.)

Slowly, he kneels next to Martel, next to their brother.

“I am sorry, too,” he tells Mithos. “I am not completely without fault, either. We both made our fair share of mistakes.”

Mithos laughs, soft, his smile bitter. He turns his head away, to Presea.

“Presea…?” he begins, then laughs that bitter laugh again. Another shard in his crystal goes dark, but when he ripples, it isn’t nearly as bad this time, though it makes sweat pour down his brow, like he’s only managing to stay this composed through immense determination. He shakes his head, reconsidering his words. “Well, you don’t have to forgive me,” he tells her.

( _He wonders if she stayed only because she felt she had a debt to repay. He wouldn’t be surprised, if so. But he asked much too much of her in return._ )

“Thank you for being there,” Mithos whispers. “I’m sorry for… everything.”

Presea swallows. She isn’t that great at words either, but…

“Apology accepted,” she says, kind of rigid, kind of sad.

( _She is not without fault either_.)

Mithos reaches up to touch his broken core crystal, closing his eyes and swaying where he sits. He falls back against a glass pillar behind him, slumping against it.

“Thank you for… for… for coming up here, all this way. For me,” Mithos whispers, head tilting towards his sister. “Honestly I don’t know- don’t know why I… Guess I just. Missed home.”

Martel laughs, knowing the feeling well. She wants to touch him, still. She scoots closer instead, settling with that. It has to be good enough.

Lloyd clears his throat. “The… Architect…” he says, slowly, looking around. “He still lives up here, right?”

Both Aegises turn to him, heads tilted and squinting identically.

“Well I was just thinking: Can’t he fix you, Mithos?” Lloyd asks. When everyone _looks_ at him, he laughs and scratches the back of his neck. “I guess I just thought that’s why you came up here. If anyone could fix you, it’d be him, right?”

Mithos shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “Like he’d care.”

“Mithos…” Martel scolds.

“You _know_ he doesn’t care about us, sis!” Mithos snaps back, vindicated. “If he cared, none of this would have happened. He wouldn’t have let us get stolen. He wouldn’t have let us go into those _fucking_ cannons.”

Martel’s hands curl around her skirts.

“He doesn’t care about us,” Mithos repeats, sharp. “He doesn’t care about any of us blades. That’s why I had to do something!”

“Why… you had to destroy yourself?” Martel asks—scared, angry, worried. “Why you wanted to destroy _us_?”

( _Colette’s fear and anger ring within her, too, as does Zelos’, across the ether that connects them._ )

Mithos fingers tighten on his shattered crystal.

“There’s no gain without sacrifice,” he whispers—not manic, not cold, just tired. Just tired.

Another shard in his chest goes out. His form ripples again, that hasty pull of it ten inches to the left before it snaps back into place, where it quivers before settling amongst the dying rainbow of light surrounding him.

Lloyd steps forward.

“No one… had to be sacrificed, though,” he whispers, smiling gently.

Mithos glares up at him.

“Of _course_ someone did,” he hisses. “Blades aren’t just self-sufficient on their own!”

Sheena steps forward as well.

“They can be,” she argues. “That’s what- what I was trying to tell you, before. There were experiments. Blades were created, blades that needed no driver. Corrine may be the only one surviving, but…” She reaches up to touch their neck, and they push their cheek against hers, leaning into her hand. “There _were_ blades that were free. And there can be blades that are free again, without sacrificing anyone.”

Mithos raises his eyebrows at her, listening, if skeptical.

“Yeah?” he asks, chin high. “And how do you intend to set us free?”

“Rewrite the system,” Sheena insists, resolute. “If blades don’t need to resonate with humans anymore, then they’ll be free. We’ll ask the Architect. He can do that, right? And if he doesn’t wanna help…?” She pounds her fist against her open palm, grinning wide, menacing, ecstatic. “I’ll _make_ him wanna.”

Mithos laughs, delighted, though it’s still kind of broken. ( _Everything about him is, now_.)

“That’s… actually really smart,” he admits. “Guess some good can come from humans after all.”

Sheena beams.

Mithos tilts his head up to the stars above and calls—eyes closed and voice labored, but he calls: “Hey, Father? Are you listening?”

 

\- - -

 

 “You’re sad,” Mithos says.

“I am not,” his father answers, gaze fixed on the stars.

“You can’t lie to me.”

“I am not lying.”

“Yes you are. There’s an emotional bleed, remember? You’re _sad_.”

Hesitation, from the man he calls Father. His father’s gaze does not trail away from the stars, but he does sigh, and he does smile faintly.

“Perhaps I am.”

“Why?” Mithos asks, ever curious.

“It would be difficult to explain. The past is better left in the past, anyway.”

Mithos isn’t really satisfied with the answer, but then, Mithos is rarely satisfied with anything.

 

\- - -

 

 “Hey, Father? Are you listening?”

Mithos’ voice echoes in expectant silence.

They all wait.

No one daring to breathe.

And then—

Footsteps.

They hear footsteps.

Soft and frankly unremarkable, footsteps that sound like they belong to not a god, but just a man.

And it is just a man who approaches.

He, too, is unremarkable—at least at first glance.

He’s old, if that can be counted as remarkable, with a face marked by age and hair that’s long gone white. The hair sticks up a little at the front, and falls down well past his back. There’s something… familiar about him, actually, both Lloyd and Kratos find, though it’s difficult to place their fingers on what exactly makes him seem that way. He has a square jaw and tired red eyes. A golden locket hangs around his neck.

He reeks of ether.

That about him _is_ remarkable.

Because, despite how much ether every blade can sense radiating from this man, his clothes show off both where his core crystal and ether lines should be, and he has neither of those. How can a man who is not a blade smell so much of ether?

“Are you… the Architect?” Lloyd asks, finding the courage to speak first.

The man hesitates. He seems a little stuck, for a moment, as he stares at Lloyd. Then he composes himself.

“That is… what they call me,” he says. “They also call me Origin.”

“Did you hear my great plan?” Sheena asks, still grinning.

“I did,” Origin says.

“And?”

Origin sighs, folding his arms across his chest, looking a moment away from rubbing at his forehead in exasperation. “I would… advise against it,” he says, carefully.

His response sends an uncomfortable ripple throughout the group, as high hopes are shot down. Sheena grins a little wider, a little meaner, stepping forward only to be stopped by Raine’s hand on her arm. Origin seems unsurprised.

Mithos laughs, sharp. “I told you!” he sings, the notes distorted even in his bitter joy.

Origin wilts, considering the Aegis, the boy he created, with a look close to heartbreak. He can’t look at Mithos for long before he has to turn away again.

“Blades… are the way they are for a reason,” Origin explains, slowly. He sounds resolute, if weighed down by his exhaustion. “Resonance is important. If humans and blades do not have a way to understand each other, then I fear blades will be mistreated.”

“Blades _are_ getting mistreated, though!” Genis counters. “ _Because_ of the resonance.”

Origin hesitates.

“Did you not know?” Kratos demands, rising to his feet again to stand up to his creator. Five hundred years of betrayal at human hands weigh heavy on his back. “Were you unaware that you have created a system just _begging_ to be abused?”

“That was not my intention,” Origin begins.

He gets no further before Kratos punches him in the face.

Sheena whoops. Mithos laughs. No one else says anything.

The man they call god reels back from the force of the blow, a short sound of surprise escaping his throat but nothing more. Kratos stands there, breathing heavily, feeling more furious than he has any right to feel.

( _He doesn’t even remember what it’s like to be on the non-driver end of a resonance_.)

“Alright,” Origin says, slowly, as he straightens. “That’s fair. I deserved that.”

He doesn’t sound like he’s joking.

An apology bubbles in Kratos’ throat. He swallows it.

Origin hesitates, then continues, haltingly: “You… have every right to be angry. There is no excuse for the reality I created, nor my mistakes.” He sighs. Guilt is thick in his voice. “Blades… the basis for blades… were created to be tools, and I did nothing to change that. I should have. I could have. But, foolishly, I assumed the resonance and the emotional link would be enough to dissuade anyone from trying.”

“Why even create resonance to begin with?” Yuan calls, his tone more curious than sharp. Origin’s eyes flick towards him, then immediately slide off.

“I…” Origin answers, but it seems to take him a moment to find the words. “Like I said, I had… hoped… that it would serve as a way for humans and blades to better understand each other. And…”

He hesitates.

Eyes closed rather than looking at all of those he has wronged, the Architect, the one they call god, is a sorry sight. He stands rigid though his shoulders slump, hands fidgeting with his belts, like he isn’t sure what to do with them otherwise.

( _Zelos privately wonders if the guy’s inherently bad at talking to people, or if it’s just that he hasn’t had the chance to in who knows how many years_.)

“And?” Zelos presses, because apparently someone has to to get him going again.

Origin sighs.

“I feared that blades… that blades would be unstable, fall apart, without something to anchor onto,” he explains, slowly. “I feared that without a human conduit, the mana—the ether—would go out of control, and then the blades would… Well.” He stops there.

He hesitates again. They wait for him, because what else are they supposed to do, when they stand before the man who created their flawed world?

“I was wrong,” Origin admits. “Blades don’t need to anchor to humans. They can anchor to other blades—a scenario ripe for the ether going out of control, if it were going to—and be perfectly fine. No instabilities. In fact…” He opens his eyes, sending a glance at Mithos, who sits broken but still alive, next to him. And Martel, too, resurrected from certain death through another blade’s ether. “It seems blades anchoring to other blades can _counteract_ instabilities. So perhaps resonance was unnecessary, after all.”

“Then we’re on the same page!” Sheena says, delighted.

Origin reaches up to run a hand over his forehead, sighing deeply. “I… suppose we are,” he agrees, with clear reluctance.

“Why would you fear instability in blades, though?” Raine interrupts. Scholar as she is, she refuses to let an opportunity such as this go to waste. If there were only time, she would gladly tear into the Architect’s reasoning behind everything being created as it was. ( _Also, it bothers her. Did the lie that blades could not drive blades come from the Architect himself, then? And was it really a lie, or just a misunderstanding?_ ) “Was there something about the ether that pointed to that, when you created them? Something about blades?”

“Not… about blades,” Origin answers, slowly. “But about exspheres—which I used to create blades.”

“Ex… spheres?” Lloyd repeats, the word completely unfamiliar to him, as it is to everyone else beside him.

“I would rather not get into the details,” Origin says. “They don’t matter. All that matters is, despite that my sole purpose for creating this world was to give exspheres—blades—a chance to live the lives stolen from them, instead I unthinkingly created a system that would enslave them. And for that mistake… I have failed you all.”

“You can still fix it, though,” Sheena counters. “You just have to rewrite that system. Get rid of the resonance and the need to anchor to someone, then blades will be free! We don’t _need_ resonance, anyway.”

“Actually,” Lloyd interjects. “Sorry, Sheena, but… hear me out.” He holds up hands to placate her, smiling sheepishly under her death glare. “We definitely don’t _need_ the resonance, but… I kinda like it, you know? Some of it’s… actually kinda great.” He looks to Zelos, a private fondness shared between them, then to Yuan and Botta, who also understand. “Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I’d… hate to toss it entirely.”

“Ha! Figures a human would say that,” Mithos laughs, tone cold and glare sharp. “Your friend’s right, though. So long as there’s resonance, blades will never be free.”

“Well…” Lloyd chews on that a moment. “What if…” He grapples for the right thought, for the solution. And then he finds it. “What if it’s a choice,” he whispers, the revelation striking him with awe. “If blades can choose to resonate, or choose not to, or- or choose to _stop,_ if their driver sucks—That’d do it, right?!”

Pride burns in Origin’s eyes.

“That… certainly would,” he agrees.

Lloyd grins.

“So?” he presses.

“Hm?” Origin asks.

“Can you change it?”

“Oh.” Origin hesitates, then turns his head away. “…no,” he says.

Lloyd blinks, surprised. That wasn’t the answer he—or any of them, really—were expecting. “What?” Lloyd asks.

“I cannot,” Origin admits.

“Can’t? Or _won’t_?” Mithos demands, anger cracking in his voice.

“…cannot,” Origin repeats.

Sheena scoffs, not thinking very highly of the Architect at all anymore, at this point. “I thought you were supposed to be some kind of god,” she spits, not sure if she should be laughing or angry.

With a soft, bitter smile, Origin shrugs. “I am not,” he says.

“You literally created a _world_ ,” Seles calls, finding herself in a similar boat as Sheena, unsure if she wants to laugh or punch this man they call the Architect. ( _The fact he probably wouldn’t even be upset if she punched him makes the idea less appealing._ ) “How can you _not_ be a god?”

Origin laughs, now, still soft, but tired. “Believe me, anyone can do that if they borrow the power from the right places,” he explains. “I borrowed mine from the Aegises. I have no power that they do not. In fact, I have little power at all.”

Mithos vaults upright, saved from overbalancing only by his hands hitting the ground in front of him before the rest of his body can. His features twist with pain and anger.

( _Three hundred years ago, he told his father his plans to destroy humanity, and his father cautioned that he wouldn’t be strong enough alone. But if all along, his father was borrowing power from HIM—_ )

“You _lied_ to me!?” Mithos spits. Betrayal is still the most bitter taste he has ever known.

“I am sorry,” Origin whispers, flinching. His voice brims with sorrow. “Truly, for everything. For all the ways I failed you, Mithos… And you, Martel.” Slowly, with clear effort, he faces the group before him, a group made primarily of blades. “And I’m sorry for the ways I have failed… all of you. You’ve all suffered so much, haven’t you?”

“That we have,” Kratos spits back.

“Forgive me.” Origin squeezes his eyes shut, a moment. “Though I do not believe I deserve that forgiveness.” He opens his eyes again, focuses on Lloyd. “If… If you really wish to rewrite the system, then I will guide you, but I cannot do it for you. And…” He hesitates, eyes flicking towards Mithos. “With Mithos in the state he is, I am not certain if…”

He trails off.

“Can you fix him?” Zelos asks. His eyes are fixed on Mithos, on the crystal he shattered, and guilt swirls a storm in his stomach. “If you created the Aegises to begin with, can’t you…?”

Origin shakes his head.

“I could…” Martel begins, voice soft and small before she bites her tongue.

 _No!_ Martel calls into their shared mindspace, furious.

‘ _I don’t mind—_ ’ Colette argues.

_I do!!_

Martel shakes her head, hands trembling as they clutch her skirts, knuckles white. Tears burn in her eyes, sorrow warring with her anger. Mithos sends her a curious look, as does Origin, but she just shakes her head harder.

She won’t let Colette. She _won’t_.

( _Colette knows how important family is, though. She just wants to help hers, no matter the cost._ )

“We have another Aegis,” Lloyd offers, sending a hesitant glance at Zelos. Zelos blanches, like the last thing he wants is that responsibility. Lloyd plows ahead anyway. “I don’t know if Zelos is nearly as powerful, but…”

The Architect turns to consider Zelos, the artificial Aegis made by human hands, and he smiles, amused.

“Why should he be any weaker?” Origin asks, eyebrows raised. “The original Aegises were made by human hands, just as the so-called artificial Aegises were. I see no problem.”

Lloyd beams, though Zelos doesn’t look nearly as certain. “That’s great!” Lloyd says, punching the air. He bounces on his heels, excited to get to work, to do what they have all journeyed so far to do. He looks the Architect square in the eye. “So, how do we—”

“Actually,” Yuan interrupts, stepping forward. “If we’re going to rewrite the system, I have a request.”

“Sure thing!” Lloyd says.

“Can blades’ memories be restored?” Yuan asks.

Zelos lets out a sharp, short laugh before Origin can open his mouth. He shakes his head. “Are you kidding me?” Zelos says, feeling a little more comfortable in discussing something he’s familiar with. “All that data? It gets lost. Reused, recycled, written over. Even if it _was_ still salvageable…” He grimaces. “That would be billions of memories, each stripped of any defining features, making it downright _stupid_ to even try and return them to the right blade.”

Yuan scowls, but used to Zelos by now, asks his next, more reasonable request:

“Then can our memories be _recorded,_ from here on out,” Yuan asks. “So that we won’t lose them when we die?”

“I would advise against it,” Origin says, sharp. “As it is, blades can live a very, very long time, and the weight of that many memories…? Believe me, it is more burden than blessing—”

“We can do it, though,” Mithos interjects. “If you want, Yuan. I think I have an idea.”

Yuan raises his eyebrows, having not expected this to be his savior.

“Yeah?” he asks.

Mithos grins, wide and delighted. “Yeah! Blade data is already relayed up here to Derris-Kharlan, which serves as the center of the network,” he explains, breathless in his excitement. He speaks too fast, but he doesn’t stutter, doesn’t get stuck, certain of what needs to get done and too determined to see it through to let himself break before it happens. “The network is _meant_ to store memories and things, which is why blades still have their names and personalities when they reform, but—What was it you said you had powering the network, Father? Some kind of…”

“Cruxis Crystal,” Origin finishes, with some reluctance.

“And I’m right in assuming that ‘Cruxis Crystal’ was not designed to store nor process large amounts of data?” Mithos presses.

Origin sighs. “No.”

“Then what we need to do is replace it!” Mithos says, certain. His eyes have gone glassy and unfocused, too much of his attention devoted to getting the words out clearly. “A blade processor is probably the only thing that could handle that much data and sort it properly so that it gets sent to the correct blade. And, an _Aegis’s_ processor…” He trails off, promise left bright and loud in his unfinished sentence. He might be tapping fingers against his own core crystal, but his body is too refracted for anyone to be sure.

“Mithos,” Martel says in warning, understanding his offer and not certain she likes it.

Her little brother smiles at her, _beams_ at her. “Hey, sis, it’s okay,” he tells her. “If we do this, we might even be able to save me. I won’t- I won’t be able to keep a physical form, I think—but I won’t die. Besides… I still want to save everyone. That’s- That’s all I’ve been fighting for, all this time.” His smile is soft, expression at peace. “I’d be more than happy to…”

Yuan considers him, the weight of how much Mithos is offering for _his_ sake pressing heavy down on his shoulders.

“Are… Are you _sure_?” Yuan asks.

“Of course I am!” Mithos tells him, bright and certain. “What, you don’t want my hands all over your memories?” he asks, and he laughs, and though it is still broken, something about the words and the tone of them and the shape of his grin is like—

Like a little brother Yuan could maybe picture once having.

“W, well,” Yuan stammers.

Mithos laughs more, louder and brighter. “I’m kidding!” he says. “I won’t look! There’d probably be too much data to dig through, anyway.”

Yuan looks disgruntled, though for reasons besides the memories. ( _It’s just… strange. He’s not sure he can forgive Mithos, not yet, but… He_ can _picture why another Yuan might have loved this boy, that bright smile and incessant cajoling, despite everything._ )

“Are you sure, Mithos?” Martel frets. “Are you _really_ sure?”

Mithos nods. “I’m positive. There’s… really not enough left of me for anything else, haha.”

His laugh now is a little scared, a little resigned. As he says it, his form ripples again—wild and erratic, a shuddering of the light around him that makes him impossible to look at before it all settles—driving his point further home.

“Then let’s do it,” Lloyd says, pounding his fist into his open palm and nodding once—sharp and determined. ( _He’d ask Mithos again, if he wants to do this, but Mithos has already said yes twice so Lloyd really doesn’t need to ask a third time, even if he feels weird not doing so._ ) Lloyd turns to Origin for instruction. “What do we need to do?”

Origin sighs deeply, but if he has any reservations, they dissolve as he sets his shoulders. “We’ll have to hurry,” he says, turning on his heel and gesturing for them to follow. “Come.”

“Oh, what, we can’t do it from here?” Lloyd asks. His eyes flicker nervously towards Mithos, who definitely doesn’t look like he’s any condition to move.

Origin shakes his head in response. “We need to head to the core of Derris-Kharlan, so we can remove my Cruxis Crystal from the network and replace it with Mithos’,” he elaborates.

“Ohhh,” Lloyd says, softly.

Martel gets to her feet and reaches down to help Mithos up, but her brother stops her with a hasty shake of his head.

“No no, don’t, you’ll hurt yourself,” he pleads.

“Can you really walk on your own?” Martel counters.

Mithos grimaces. “Well—”

After a second of clear hesitation, Origin steps towards Mithos.

“I… would understand if you would rather not, Mithos…” he begins, cautiously. “But… I _could_ carry you.” He gives the offer and then doesn’t move, waiting for permission.

Mithos glares up at his father. “Won’t that hurt _you_?” he spits.

“I will be fine,” Origin insists.

Mithos squints. “I guess… you aren’t a blade,” he relents. “So maybe you will be.”

“Are you okay with it?” Origin asks, before he moves.

Mithos sighs. “Yeah. I mean. Yeah.” He doesn’t really have a choice, does he? And as much as he feels betrayed by the man he calls father, his father _did_ apologize, and it _sounded_ like he meant it. Mithos cannot stir up a very strong fire of hatred for this man, not after that.

Not one large enough to refuse his help in this, anyway.

“Go ahead,” Mithos tells Origin, and Origin bends down to pick him up.

Touching Mithos must not hurt him, because Origin shows no signs of being in pain.

“Follow me,” Origin says, and leads the way, Mithos in his arms.

 

\- - -

 

Martel wakes up for the first time.

The very first thing she sees is the face of the man she’ll later call Father. Words are exchanged, echoes she can’t really remember now, because it’s been hundreds of years, but…

There is one thing, she’ll never forget.

The fact the man she called Father kept staring at her like he couldn’t even believe she was awake.

Like she was a miracle.

 

\- - -

 

 “Here we are,” Origin says.

His arms are not free to gesture, but it’s clear enough what it is he’s referring to. Amidst the buildings of glass stands a tower higher than the rest, a pillar at the top of which something shines like a star, teal and blinding. Ether gathers around the tower, focused on that central point. It’s obvious that this is the center of the network.

“Great!” Lloyd says, not a beat later adding: “How do we get up there?”

Martel clears her throat. There’s a pull, a concentration of ether around her, and then—a flash of light, a flutter of translucent wings behind her.

Lloyd lets out a soft gasp of awe.

Like the core crystal she shares with Colette, Martel’s wings are primarily green with streaks of pink, two blends of ether stitched unnaturally together. They’re beautiful, Lloyd thinks, even if broken.

“Like this,” Martel says, laughing softly. “You can do this too, Zelos.”

“I… can?” Zelos asks, like it’s the first time _he’s_ heard of such a thing.

Before he can ask further, his eyes go a little glassy, like he’s receiving and processing a string of information. Before focus returns to his eyes he hops into the air and a flash of orange catches him before he hits the ground. Where Martel’s wings are like flower petals, Zelos’ are more like autumn leaves, thinner and tapered. They are brilliant and orange, their color solid and unbroken.

Zelos’ eyes clear. “Alright,” he says, first a little nervous, then more confident: “Alright!”

Before Lloyd can ask what about _him,_ Martel’s ether gathers around him, and the following rush of ether steals the wind from his lungs. When he exhales, wings identical to Martel’s—if a little paler, due to their shared nature—spread from his back.

Lloyd lets out a short whoop of delight, then sets his shoulders.

“Well, let’s go!” he says.

“Be careful,” Kratos tells him.

Lloyd grins at his father. “Of course!” he insists.

“If you die, I’ll kill you!” Sheena calls at Zelos.

Zelos laughs heartily. “Okay, okay, I’ll try not to, but no promises,” he calls back.

They take to the air, making the climb to the top of the tower in only a few seconds. There’s a platform up there, which Lloyd lands on, Zelos not long after, though Martel still hovers, and Zelos keeps out his wings. Lloyd gets distracted by the star-like glow situated on top of a pedestal and amidst a wreath of ether. It’s less blinding now that he’s up here, but the teal light still shines bright enough to obscure its source.

“Where’s Origin?” Zelos says, a beat later. “We forgot to ask if—oh.”

Origin lands before he finishes, deposited by teal wings onto the platform beside them, Mithos still in his arms. The wings vanish immediately after he lands, but the fleeting look Zelos gets of them gives him the impression of something brittle; like withered flower petals, fragile enough to disintegrate at the slightest puff of air.

Origin sets Mithos down with care, making sure he’s good to sit upright on his own before Origin steps away and towards the pedestal.

Origin looks to Martel. “I’ll disconnect my Cruxis Crystal,” he says. “You will have to hold the network steady while you prepare Mithos’ processor.”

“Understood,” Martel says.

“I’ll do that,” Zelos offers. “Holding onto the network can’t be that hard.”

Origin lifts his hand, looks to the Aegises for confirmation. “Are you ready?”

Zelos reaches out his own hand and closes it around a stream of ether, which immediately shifts from teal to orange under his touch. His eyes go glassy. He nods.

Martel nods, too, kneeling beside Mithos, who grins up at her.

“I’m ready,” Mithos says.

“Me too,” Martel agrees.

Lloyd stands and waits, not sure what to do, but confident that it’s fine to let his blades handle it. He feels their ether flow through him like a stream, and readily serves as a conduit through which Martel and Zelos relay information back and forth to each other.

Origin reaches—unflinchingly—into the blinding coalescence of ether above the pedestal. From it he plucks a diamond shaped crystal, a crystal which goes dark in his hands the moment it’s disconnected. He exhales softly as he considers it. His expression is obscured by a jolt in Lloyd’s veins, something shaky bad wrong—

“Fuck,” Martel says; quiet, but filled with sharp concern.

“Martel?” Lloyd asks, turning to her, but he doesn’t receive an answer.

Her face is scrunched up in concentration, hands moving through the air as she grabs threads of ether in her fingers. Again, she tries to hook threads into Mithos’ ether, but the connection bounces off. Just _touching_ Mithos’ unstable ether makes the whole network tremble, an uncomfortable jolt that all five of them feel.

Martel’s eyes darken. She tries again.

The result is the same. A tremor in the network, like a taut string snapping and slapping against their faces. Martel hisses, Mithos yelps, Lloyd squeezes his eyes shut.

A tug, a swell of ether. Determination, passed along Lloyd’s link to Martel.

“Martel, stop!” Zelos spits, his voice hot and full of fire. “You’re gonna bring the whole network down!”

“But—” Martel protests.

“Sis, _please,_ it’s fine, don’t- don’t—” Mithos begs, gets stuck for a second. One of few remaining lit crystals he has left goes dark, and his body trembles, fragmentations of light bouncing off of him before he settles into his proper shape again. Lloyd feels it in his own bones, like he’s a gong that’s been struck. “Just. _Stop_ trying…” Mithos whispers.

“But what about _you_?” Martel counters, kneeling over her baby brother with fistfuls of ether in her hands—unable to touch him, unable to do anything more than glare, furious and sad, down at him as he falls back, having lost the energy to sit upright any longer.

“It- It was… a nice thought…” Mithos mumbles, with a little laugh, eyes fluttering closed.

“No!” Martel screams.

Origin hisses, softly.

“Well,” Lloyd says, scrambling to keep everyone on track. “Now what? If we can’t put Mithos in there—”

“I cannot put my Cruxis Crystal back in,” Origin informs them, grave. “It’s been bled dry. You’ll have to find something else…” He trails off, knowing as well as the rest of them that there are only two other options up here.

“Dammit,” Zelos curses. “If I hadn’t fucking stabbed him— _Fuck._ ” He grimaces, his own ether roiling as he wrestles with a decision he doesn’t like, but: “I’ve got the most complete crystal out of the four of us. Can we use just _part_ of mine, or does it have to be the whole thing?”

The last thing Lloyd wants is to leave Zelos up here, and that seems to be the last thing Zelos really wants, too, though his offer is tinted with resignation, like it’s the outcome he expects. He’s already serving as a temporary anchor for the network as it is—

“No, Zelos, it’s alright,” Martel insists. She drops the fistfuls of ether. Determination burns stronger in her than anything else Lloyd can feel. “I have an idea. Not that…” She pauses and laughs, bitter. “Not that any of you are going to like it. I just hope it works.”

“What?” Lloyd asks.

‘ _No!_ ’ Colette screams, as she feels an ether link between herself and Martel snap.

“Martel?” Zelos asks, feeling his sister’s despair, the echoes of snapping links resonating in his bones.

 _I have to,_ Martel says to Colette, her attention too divided by the concentration it takes to sever tightly bound links of ether and beating back the despair Colette is feeling to afford any extra attention in answering Zelos or Lloyd.

‘ _No, no, don’t!’_ Colette cries, holding the links tightly in her hands as if she can prevent Martel from snapping them.

 _Please, I have to,_ Martel repeats.

And Colette knows this, and Colette’s not selfish enough to protest further, even though she doesn’t want Martel to leave—Martel is the first friend she ever really had, Martel is the only reason she’s here, Martel is the only reason she has a family and people who care about her and Martel is so so so important to her, but…

Mithos is her brother, isn’t he?

 _I’m sorry,_ Martel says, voice full of despair though she does not stop snapping the links. _Besides, it’s the only way._

 _‘…I know,’_ Colette says.

(It would be hypocritical, to offer herself up on the pyre but refuse to let Martel do the same.)

So she lets go.

 _I’m so sorry,_ Martel says.

 _‘He’s your brother,’_ Colette assures her. ‘ _I understand.’_

It’s not like she can stop Martel’s slow and steady and unstopping severing of the ether links binding them to each other, anyway. It’s not like she can stop it.

But she is—selfishly—warm to notice that Martel seems to hesitate, as she gets to the last few.

 _I’ll miss you,_ Martel says.

 _I’ll miss you too,_ Colette whispers.

The final ether link snaps.

There’s a burst of ether around them, a blinding glow, a flash of green. Colette’s core crystal feels like it’s burning. Everything’s on fire. She cries out with her own voice, as Martel pulls away and the green around them flows, fills, overshadows Mithos’ core crystal.

And when the light dies down, Colette stands there.

And Mithos lies there.

Mithos isn’t impossible to look at anymore. His features are normal, not blinding, and he blinks as he pushes himself upright.

“There,” Mithos says, with Martel’s voice. “That should do it.”

Mithos’ fingers reach up to trace his core crystal. It’s a beautiful even swirl of sapphire and emerald, punctuated by flecks of the rainbow. There are no cracks, no lines of unnaturally fused ether. Only the colors make it clear that it does not exist quite as core crystals were meant to.

“Sis…” Mithos whispers, with his own voice. “You…?”

“ _Martel_!?” Lloyd asks, voice pitching upward with his surprise.

“What the fuck,” Zelos whispers, mostly sounding mortified, though there’s a thread of anger that passes along his ether to his driver and to his sister.

Origin stares, but he does not look surprised in the slightest.

“Please, don’t be angry with her,” Colette begs, her fingers on her own core crystal. It’s almost entirely pink, now, though the pattern of cracks remain, filled in by a spiderweb of green, Martel healing what she could even as she left. “This way- This way we can…”

“You’ll have to hook both of us into the network, if you don’t want us to die,” Martel explains, with her brother’s body. ( _Even like this, they are not complete enough to exist any other way._ ) “But this way, none of us have to die, and none of us have to go unwillingly.” As she speaks, Mithos’ form begins to turn transparent, glowing particles of sapphire and emerald cradling the echo of his shape, only the healed core crystal remaining solid where it hangs suspended.

“Is this… what you want?” Lloyd asks, taking a cautious step forward.

“Yes,” Mithos and Martel answer in unison.

Lloyd nods, smiling, but a little sad. “All right,” he says, and reaches out to take the core crystal as Mithos’ shape fades completely.

It’s warm and full of life, in his hands. He takes a deep breath.

“You guys ready?” Lloyd asks, turning to his two remaining blades, Zelos and Colette, the Aegises that this world created, the Aegises who are left to look after this world.

Zelos nods with no hesitation, his wings burning like the sun behind him.

Colette smiles and nods as well, a flash of pink carrying her into the air on wings of her own.

“Then let’s do it,” Lloyd says, with a confident grin. His heart beats like a drum in his chest, ether pouring through his veins. Pink and orange spread out behind him, wings borrowed from his Aegises’ as they share their power with him.

Lloyd steps towards the center of the network, and places Mithos and Martel’s shared core crystal on the pedestal.

A flash, a spark of warmth. Certainty, in his mind, of what to do.

Lloyd grabs strands of ether between his fingers, and deftly ties them around the core crystal, anchoring the network to it. Then, comes everything else.

Under his hands, the network turns the colors of a sunrise.

 

\- - -

 

Around the world, thousands, millions of resonance links snap, leaving millions of blades surprised they’re still standing.

And then, so everyone understands, information is relayed along the network of ether that connects them. The new rules. The way things work now.

That resonance is a choice.

 

\- - -

 

There’s a lot of buzz when Lloyd and the two remaining Aegises come back down, the Architect not far behind. Cries of congratulation, celebration, worry about Martel and a somewhat heated discussion between Yuan and Botta on whether or not they’re going to reestablish their resonance link _now_ or save it for their wedding, which only being on Derris-Kharlan is stopping them from having at this precise moment. Kratos watches it all with some fondness, but hangs back, not wanting to get involved. The Architect, it seems, has the same idea.

Kratos is happy, though, of course he is. Pride for his son (as well as relief he’s okay) burns strong in his chest, pride along with… hope. The new network doesn’t really affect Kratos, seeing as he is a flesh eater, but he’s glad that in the future, blades won’t be able to be abused as terribly as he was. He thinks fondly of the chaos that must be ensuing on the surface. Experiments interrupted. Battles stopped completely. All because blades have a say in matters, a _real_ say in matters.

It still leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, that the Architect would create the world otherwise to begin with, and standing not ten feet from the man still makes the ether in his veins boil sharp and hot with anger he doesn’t understand why he’s feeling.

It boils a little hotter, as he meets eyes with the man.

Origin starts to look away, then stops. He seems to gather his resolve, a sight which fills Kratos with dread, especially when Origin’s next move is to make his way over to Kratos. Kratos chews on his tongue, debating on whether or not he wants to find an excuse to not have this conversation, but…

“Kratos…?” Origin asks, gentle, if cautious. “May I speak with you?”

Kratos’ eyes dart towards his companions, but none of them are paying any attention to him at all, so he’ll have to make a scene or refuse Origin outright at this point. And… As he lets his gaze return to the man asking the question of him, something uncomfortable thumps in his core crystal. Origin’s eyes are so tired, so sad, so _old_ , somehow it’s… hard to refuse.

“Yes,” Kratos answers, with a heavy sigh. He might as well.

Origin nods for Kratos to follow him, leading him a little ways away from the group. The core of Derris-Kharlan is situated at what Kratos knows somehow to be the highest point of the city, and there’s a balcony that looks over the glass buildings below. It’s here that Origin stops, hands resting on the railing, as he searches for his words. Kratos lets him, not sure himself how to start the conversation, either.

“I suppose… I simply wanted to thank you,” Origin says, at length. “Particularly, for looking after the Aegises, when I could not.”

That sharp anger bubbles up within Kratos again, but at least this time he understands it. The thought— _memories, echoes of pain passed along the link they shared hundreds of years ago_ —of Mithos and Martel in those cannons fills him with fury, especially knowing their father did nothing to help them.

“Why didn’t you?” Kratos asks, letting the taste of anger on his tongue fill his words and sharpen his tone. “Why didn’t you help them?”

Origin flinches. Sighs.

“I… could not,” he answers, which seems to be his answer for everything. “My life force is—was—tied to Derris-Kharlan.” Kratos watches as Origin reaches up to touch the locket he wears—no. Not the locket. An ornamentation of gold embedded in his skin, approximately the same size and shape to hold a core crystal like Kratos’ own. He fingers the hole, expression distant and full of regret. “Leaving would have killed me instantly.”

“Were you certain of that?” Kratos demands, still furious on his family’s behalf.

“Well,” Origin begins, and Kratos’ anger flares.

“They’re your _children_!”

Origin lowers his head. Grips the railing tightly.

“Not… exactly,” he whispers.

Kratos squints, hands clenched into fists at his sides, too alight with his anger to let them relax. He feels like a taut wire.

“They… call you father,” Kratos counters, the sentence alone voicing his confusion so he does not need to ask the full question.

Origin nods, looking somewhat miserable. “It made them happy,” he explains. “I wasn’t going to ask them to stop. But, truthfully… It’s hard to see them as anything other than what they are.” He laughs, brokenly, to himself. “Reflections of old friends, echoed back at me… But I suppose that’s what I get, being as selfish as I am.”

The words are borderline nonsensical. Kratos squints deeper at this man, the unexplainable and equally sickening familiarity resonating in his core at the sound of his laughter and the sight of his head hanging in defeat. Kratos still can’t place his finger on why it’s familiar, but for some reason, it makes his anger burn even hotter.

He takes a guess.

“What’s your name?” Kratos asks, staring at the man they call the Architect, the man who said he was called Origin. “Your real one.”

The man who said his name was Origin laughs mirthfully. His hands tighten on the railing he grips.

“What?” Kratos presses, not having the patience.

“I’m not sure you’ll believe me,” the Architect whispers, shaking his head.

“Tell me anyway,” Kratos insists. “It’s the least you owe me.”

The Architect hesitates. Then he lifts his head and squares his shoulders, eyes squeezed shut.

“It’s… Kratos Aurion,” he says.

Kratos blinks.

His ether runs immediately cold.

“Pardon?”

The Architect laughs again, short and empty.

“I told you you wouldn’t believe me,” he says.

Kratos finds it impossible to breathe around the clutch in his chest. He… absolutely heard the man right, but it doesn’t make any sense.

“I’m… afraid I don’t understand,” Kratos says, not sure what else to say.

The man who called himself by Kratos’ name lifts his head to the stars above, a rueful smile on his lips.

“This world, this universe, is a reflection of another,” he explains. “It was not intentional, and it was certainly a surprise, to see myself and so many people I knew reflected back to me on its surface… Perhaps it was inevitable, the moment I hooked my own Cruxis Crystal up to the network. All of that data, all of my memories, bleeding into the very foundation of the world…”

Kratos stares, dumfounded. He cannot find the words to speak. Cold shock rings inside him like a gong and leaves him numb, especially as he realizes the face he’s staring at is familiar because he recognizes it from the mirror.

The Architect continues, voice filled with sadness: “And just as familiar people were reflected, so too, was our tragedy repeated,” he says, with that soft and bitter laugh. “I am only grateful this tragedy did not tear the world completely asunder. But I am still sorry.”

Kratos says nothing. He considers the man before him, the man he is a reflection of, wondering what it is he sees in the stars he seems so fixated on. Kratos’ eyes fall to the locket the other man wears, wondering who else has been reflected besides Mithos and Martel, wondering if he really wants to know the answer to that. It’s still hard to breathe.

( _What_ are _you supposed to say, to think, to feel, when you discover you are but a reflection of the man who created the world you call home?_ )

The Architect sighs, and sends Kratos an apologetic smile. “Forgive me. I’ve… said too much, I think.”

“No…” Kratos finds himself saying. “I asked.”

“I did not have to answer truthfully,” the Architect counters, and Kratos laughs, startled.

Kratos pulls his eyes away from the man before him and looks too to the stars. Their position on Derris-Kharlan and Derris-Kharlan’s position in the sky means they cannot see Aselia, but Kratos finds his mind on it.

“This world…” he asks, slowly. “Is it what you wanted?”

The Architect shrugs. “It is what it was made to be. I did not create it for myself, but for those who had their lives stolen from them—a second chance, a place for them to live lives they did not get to. Though I fear, along with my hopes, it received many of my nightmares, as well…” There is a weight in his words that Kratos cannot possibly fathom, the weight of a million sins Kratos the flesh eater would easily break under, despite having helped this Mithos do hundreds of terrible things.

“Hmm,” Kratos says. He does not know what else to say.

The Architect turns to him, and smiles, wide. “I am glad, though, it is now in such capable hands as yours, and your son’s. I think, with that, I can rest in peace.”

The words catch Kratos’ attention, make his head snap towards the man standing beside him. He doesn’t doubt he heard correctly, though he wonders if he understood it as he was meant to, and stands there, uncertain of how to ask.

The Architect understands, though, and humors him with an explanation.

“Mithos was right, saying that a Cruxis Crystal was never meant to serve as the central point of a network like the one I set up for blades,” he says, with a tired smile. “After all these years, instead of the crystal powering the network, it became the other way around. And the moment I disconnected it…” He trails off, fingers reaching up to touch that hole in the gold in his collarbone again. “Well. I was never meant to live hundreds of years, let alone thousands. It… won’t be long, now.”

The weight of this moment crashes into Kratos all at once. The man that even he considered just hours ago to be god has chosen _him_ , of all people, to witness his final moments.

He opens his mouth. Finds he still can’t find the words. He feels paralyzed, trapped.

It’s all so much to take in.

“By the way,” the Architect says, and Kratos tries to focus on the words, not the fact he can see it happening, see the way this man begins to fade now that the last thing anchoring him to this world is gone. “I think you should head to Meltokio, as soon as you get the chance.”

“What for?” Kratos asks.

 “I’ll just say… there’s someone there who would be _very_ happy to see you.”

There’s something wistful, almost pained with how fond it is, in the Architect’s voice. Kratos stares, blood pounding in his ears and his cursed human heart very, _very_ tight. He nods, though. If this is the man’s final wish, then going to Meltokio is the least he can do.

“Alright,” he promises.

“Good,” the Architect says, happy, somewhat urgent. “Good.”

“I…” Kratos begins, certain that he should say something more, but not sure what to say. Even calling the man by name seems strange, considering what his name is.

The Architect reaches out and grabs one of Kratos’ hands in his own. He squeezes it tighter than Kratos thinks he should be able to, given how ghost-like he appears. Teal particles pull away from him and dissipate into the air, and Kratos watches, eyes wide, heart and core crystal both pounding.

Tears pouring down his cheeks and smiling wider than Kratos is sure the man has smiled in years, the Architect holds Kratos’ hand and speaks:

“Kratos Aurion, bravest blade in all of Aselia,” he says. “Thank you.”

And the last of his mana fades away, leaving Kratos with nothing but the ghostly imprint of a hand gripping his own, and—

A golden locket, that clatters to the ground.

Something hot burning in his eyes, Kratos slowly kneels to pick it up. It’s well taken care of, despite its clear age. And, it’s strange, but… there’s a repair on the chain that almost certainly looks like Lloyd’s handiwork.

Curious, ether roaring in his ears, Kratos gently opens the clasp.

It’s a long, long time before he remembers how to breathe again.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now that this chapter is up, y'all are legally obligated to tell me the exact moment you figured out the Architect was You Know Who


	6. Chapter 6

That night, Colette dreams.

She dreams of clouds painted pink by a sunrise, surrounded by endless hills and tall green grass that sways gently in the breeze. Everything is soft. Everything is bursting with life, and freedom. Her head is in someone’s lap.

“Oh!” she says, startled, as she sees who it is.

Martel smiles down at her, fingers brushing gently through Colette’s hair.

“Hello,” Martel says, smiling softly.

Colette leaps upright and throws her arms around Martel, wrapping her in a tight hug. She clings, not wanting to let go, relishing in how solid and _here_ Martel is. Martel laughs softly and squeezes her tight in return, and everything seems to still, held in each other’s arms.

“Colette,” Martel says, after a minute.

Colette laughs a little, lets go though she doesn’t want to. Tears burn sharp and warm in her eyes, her ether bubbling with excitement and fondness and relief and love so deep she isn’t sure what to do with it all. She grips Martel’s hands in hers, and Martel lets her.

“Sorry,” Colette apologizes, on reflex, though she isn’t really sorry at all. “I just didn’t think I’d ever get to see you again.”

Martel’s lips pull in a smile that’s somewhere between fond and mischievous. “Mithos figured out we can visit the dreams of… well, any blade,” she explains. “So I can visit you like this, as often as you want.”

“Every night?” Colette asks, breathless and knowing she’s asking too much.

Martel laughs, but it’s bright and fond, so Colette knows it’s okay.

“Maybe not that often,” Martel answers, squeezing Colette’s hands. “But I promise I’ll make sure it’s often.”

Colette grins, wide. “That’d be great,” she says.

Martel extracts one of her hands from Colette’s grip and reaches up, brushing hair out of Colette’s face. Tears sting in her eyes, as she considers the younger girl, feelings of sharp longing and sorrow stirring in her chest. She holds the feelings close, not that they could even be shared between them anymore.

She misses Colette more than she thought she would.

She could not have abandoned her little brother, of course, but there’s a pang of regret she didn’t expect. In hindsight, it feels somehow wrong, to have cut herself off so cleanly from the girl she was beginning to love like a little sister.

Martel cups Colette’s cheek in her palm, and Colette leans into the touch, eyes wide and bright.

“Thank you, Colette,” Martel whispers, lips trembling. Something deep and untouched heaves in her chest. “You’ve done… so much for me, and I never even asked you to. Thank you. _Thank you_.”

Colette just smiles, unashamed and unbothered.

“No, no, thank _you_ ,” she insists. “You set me free.”

The softness of the words and the tremendous weight they carry is more than Martel can bear. Squeezing her eyes shut against the tears, she pulls Colette into another embrace.

( _It was not the freedom Colette expected, when she agreed to do it._

_But she’s so much more happier this way.)_

 

\- - -

 

That night, Lloyd dreams.

He’s in a town he doesn’t recognize. Or at least, doesn’t think he recognizes. It’s small, dusty, filled with houses that look hastily and sloppily constructed. There can’t be more than twenty houses, total.

And Lloyd stands in the crossroads.

And Mithos stands before him.

“Oh,” Lloyd says, though he’s not sure he’s surprised.

Mithos smiles at him, somewhat gentle, somewhat cautious. “Hello, Lloyd,” he says. “I hope you don’t mind me intruding.”

“No, no, that’s alright,” Lloyd assures him. “I just didn’t realize you could.”

Mithos giggles, a little. “Yeah, I can,” he says. “I’m admin of the network now, remember? I can access any blade’s memories, any blade’s dreams—”

“I’m not a blade,” Lloyd counters. He’s pretty sure even his ancestry and his father’s core crystal sitting in his chest isn’t enough to change that. Probably?

“You are in resonance with Zelos, though,” Mithos explains.

“Ah,” Lloyd says, nodding. That makes more sense.

( _Something about driving the Aegises grants even him access to their dreamspace. He’s already been in it, many times before._ )

“Is Zelos here?” Lloyd asks.

Mithos shakes his head. “No. I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh.” Lloyd rocks back and forth on his heels, not nervous, but definitely confused. “What… about?”

Mithos sits down in the dust, and pats the ground next to him, inviting Lloyd to join him. Lloyd does. There’s no reason not to. He’s taller than Mithos, he finds, which is kind of funny to think about. Mithos is really… so small.

But, that’s a train of thought he doesn’t need to linger on.

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Mithos is saying, anyway. “We’re a lot alike, you and me.”

“Are we?” Lloyd asks.

Mithos nods, slowly, certain. “We both wanted the same things. We just went after them in different ways. So I guess we aren’t exactly the same.”

“No,” Lloyd agrees. “But similar.”

“Yeah.”

They sit in silence, for a moment, then Lloyd turns to the one Aegis he never really got to know, the boy who nearly burned himself for the sake of bladekind, the boy who would have gladly set humanity alight. Feelings are complicated, but Lloyd hates holding grudges, and...

“Are you happy, with how things turned out?” Lloyd asks, because it eats at him. Mithos offered himself up willingly, and Martel is with him now, but still… Lloyd wonders if he hates being stuck on Derris-Kharlan.

“Hmm.” Mithos considers the question for a moment, then nods. “Yeah. I am. My sister’s with me, so it’s not all bad. And if the rest of bladekind is happy and free… That’s enough for me. More than enough.”

Lloyd finds himself smiling. “Good,” he says.

“What about you?” Mithos asks. “Are you okay, with how things turned out?”

Lloyd nods with little hesitation. “Yeah. I mean, I’ll miss Martel, and I’m sad I never really got to get to know you, but…” He turns to Mithos, with a grin. “I guess, if you guys can visit me in my dreams, it’s not all bad.”

Mithos laughs, loud and bright. “I don’t know why I expected a different answer,” he says, palms out and shaking his head.

Lloyd laughs in echo, elbowing Mithos lightly.

“For a human, you’re not all that bad,” Mithos tells Lloyd, shoving him gently away. “Guess I feel kind of bad about… well…” He stops there, eyes fixing themselves on the town around them.

That’s right.

He’d wanted to ask earlier.

“Where are we?” Lloyd says, looking to Mithos for an answer.

“A memory, stored in the deepest parts of your heart,” Mithos replies.

Lloyd returns his attention to the dust and the houses, trying to recall memories of this place. He’s disappointed when he can’t. There’s a faint impression of movement, scattered noise, like people are moving through the streets around where he and Mithos sit, but try as he might, Lloyd cannot dig up any conscious memory of this town or the ghosts of people bustling about around him.

“I don’t expect you to remember it,” Mithos says. “It was buried very, _very_ deep. I had to use the memories of other blades to recreate it faithfully.”

“Yeah, but… where _is_ this place?” Lloyd presses, fidgeting with his frustration.

Instead of answering, Mithos turns to him, fixing him with intense, blue eyes.

“You should head to Meltokio,” Mithos says. “There’s someone there waiting for you.”

“What?” Lloyd says.

And then he wakes up.

\- - -

Yuan and Botta have their wedding on Addam’s farm, in part because that’s the longest Yuan can be convinced to wait, though truthfully Botta doesn’t seem keen on waiting either.

( _“The ceremony’s more than enough,” he tells Kratos, in private. “If we want official papers, those can wait until we figure out which country hates us the least.”_

 _Kratos, whose own wedding was conducted in the middle of nowhere and had an attendance only slightly larger than this one, understands. No one would have married a pair of rebels, and the rebels in turn didn’t really see the appeal in having it officiated by countries they hated, either._ )

“Are you excited?” Colette asks, sitting cross-legged next to Yuan, facing him and Zelos both.

“Very,” Yuan answers, fidgeting where he sits. “Nervous, but—”

“Stop moving,” Zelos scolds. “If you fidget again, I’m not doing your hair and you can go to your wedding with it looking the same way it always does.”

Yuan grumbles something, but deliberately straightens his back and holds himself very still. Colette giggles, passing Zelos another flower to braid into Yuan’s hair. Zelos grumbles and continues his work, despite his threats. Yuan _does_ remain still as promised, though.

“Excited,” he finishes telling Colette, smiling from ear to ear. It’s cute, how excited he is. Contagious, too. Colette giggles again, smiling just as wide. “Mostly excited. It’s… Ahhh.” He exhales long and deep, putting a hand to his face to hide his blush and grin both. “I love him so much? I can’t believe we’re finally getting to do this.”

“You deserve it!” Colette tells him.

“Can’t believe it took you this long, to be honest,” Zelos says, holding out his hand for another flower.

“Oh shut up,” Yuan says. Zelos laughs.

“Is it weird, being out of resonance with Botta?” Colette asks, nosy, and also trying to distract Yuan so his nervous energy turns into talking instead of more fidgeting. _She_ wants Zelos to finish his hair.

Yuan starts to nod, catches himself. “Very,” he answers. “But I really wanted to save it for something special like this. It would have been a wasted opportunity, otherwise.”

“True,” Colette agrees, with another fond giggle. “I’m a little surprised he let you, though.”

Yuan smirks and flicks his gaze towards her. “Taking advantage of my newfound freedom,” he says. “A few more hours aren’t going to kill him, anyway.”

“No, but they might kill _you_ ,” Zelos laughs.

Yuan huffs. “You’re one to talk,” he counters.

“ _Excuse_ me?”

“I see you reestablished your resonance with Lloyd immediately,” Yuan says, his smile knowing and his eyebrows raised.

Zelos splutters. Colette quickly swoops in to save him.

“Our resonance with Lloyd never actually went offline,” she explains. Truthfully, it did, but only for a second before she and Zelos both immediately and simultaneously reached for it again—but Yuan doesn’t need to know that. “Since we were messing with the network, it couldn’t.”

She’s pretty sure Yuan only believes her because it’s _her_ saying it.

“Fine, fine,” Yuan relents. He attempts to look up at Zelos. “Are you done yet?”

“No, so keep sitting still.”

Colette moves to sit in front of Yuan. “Here, braid my hair,” she says. “That way you have something to do with your hands.”

( _It’s sharp and uncomfortable, the sudden and complete severing of their resonance. If they hadn’t been aware it was coming, they might have panicked more. Botta’s hand finds Yuan’s, gripping it like he needs the reassurance he’s still there. Yuan squeezes back just as tightly._

_“Do you think it’s safe to reestablish the resonance now?” Botta asks, as the light above them dies down._

_“Yes…” Yuan answers, because like every other blade, he’s gotten the explanation, as well as the okay by this point. “But what if we wait?”_

_“What.”_

_“Listen. Hear me out. I have a really good idea.”_ )

Yuan and Botta stand in front of the makeshift altar, clasping each other’s hands tightly. Addam, who offered to officiate the wedding (he _used_ to be a high-ranking Tethe’allan officer, that counts for something, right?) stands with them, while the rest of the party and Addam’s two daughters sit in the grass.

Addam claps his hands together once. “Alright!” he says. “I’m afraid I don’t quite remember the proper words, so, uh, I hope you don’t mind—”

“It’s fine,” Yuan laughs. It’s not like he remembers them either.

“I don’t mind either,” Botta agrees. All that matters to him is that he’s here, with Yuan, celebrating their promise to stick together, forever.

“Okay!” Addam clears his throat. “Well, then. Ahem. Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate the union between Yuan and Botta. I haven’t known the pair for long, but it is clear they share one of the most beautiful, loving bond I have ever seen between a driver and blade. And so—” He hesitates. “Er, I think I remember the traditional vows, but would either of you like to say anything?”

“Yes, actually,” Botta says, not missing a beat. “Yuan?” he asks.

“Yes?” Yuan answers, meeting the eyes of the man he loves more than anything else in this world.

“The only thing, that I’ve ever wanted, is to make you happy,” Botta says. Tears burn in his eyes, but he doesn’t let go of Yuan’s hands. “I want to keep doing that, now and forever, to the best of my ability. Just as I promised I would, the day I first met you.”

He smiles, soft and shy. Yuan grins back, love bursting in his chest.

“Botta,” he says, almost chokes on the words. “You… You have made me the happiest man, and the luckiest blade, in all of Aselia. If I can make you even _half_ as happy as you’ve made me, that would be more than enough.”

“Well, Yuan, I have some good news for you,” Botta whispers. “You’ve already done that, and so much more.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely.”

Before Addam can say anything, Yuan throws his arms around Botta’s neck and kisses him.

The gathered group of barely ten, though small, easily cheers louder than a crowd of a hundred could, filled with intense joy and celebration for their family. Addam laughs something about pronouncing Yuan and Botta as officially wed as he is capable, but the newlyweds don’t hear. Botta spins Yuan around and dips him, ducking his head down to plant a kiss on Yuan’s core crystal. Yuan laughs, high and delighted, and the blue of his ether engulfs them as resonance embraces them again.

 

\- - -

 

Kratos wishes he could enjoy the party. He really, _really,_ wishes he could. He’s happy for Yuan, he is, and he absolutely cried during the wedding, but. Parties aren’t really his thing, first of all, and summoning even vague fondness out of the depths of his chest through the fog of whirling confusion he’s still processing is clearly impossible.

( _“Kratos Aurion, bravest blade in all of Aselia…”_

 _He cannot make the words stop echoing in his head_.)

Unthinkingly and on cue, his fingers find the locket he’s wearing around his neck, fingering the clasp though he dare not open it and spill its secrets in front of so many watching eyes. He can’t get the image out of his head, either.

( _A man that cannot be but must be himself with a woman who looks like Anna—too thin too tired like she hasn’t had enough food or sleep or anything in years—and a baby that he assumes is Lloyd, the picture small and framed and labeled with his own handwriting except he knows he never wrote those words._ )

( _It’d be so much easier, if he could pretend it belonged to a Kratos in a past life, but Anna’s face haunts him._ )

“Hey, Dad!” Lloyd calls.

Kratos drops the locket. No one yet has asked him about it, at least. They’ve all been too busy resting and planning this party and then celebrating in it.

“Yes?” Kratos says.

He stands well on the edge of the party, away from the music and the dancing and the wine. Lloyd grins at him though, his gait a little off-kilter as he makes his way over—oh no. Kratos scowls, wondering now if the fog in his mind is left over from attempting to process one too-big conversation he had with the man they all called god, or if this is another blade eater thing he forgot to ask about.

“Have you had wine?” he asks Lloyd, before Lloyd can make a sound.

Lloyd stops, mouth still open before he hastily closes it. That expression alone condemns him.

“No,” he lies.

“Lloyd.”

Lloyd fidgets, sheepish. “One glass,” he admits, holding up a finger. “Just one!”

“ _Lloyd,_ ” Kratos sighs, disappointed.

Lloyd rolls his eyes. “Oh come on, it’s not gonna kill me!” he protests. Kratos supposes that’s true, and that there _are_ worse places for Lloyd to have had a glass of wine than amidst his family like this, but he continues scowling, feeling faintly buzzed himself even though he didn’t ask to be. ( _Anna’s laughter and her blade’s loud complaining echo in his mind, but he tunes those out before he really thinks about it._ )

“I suppose I cannot do anything about the fact you already drank,” Kratos says.

Lloyd laughs. “Haha, yeah! Anyway!” He bumps into Kratos’ side, what appears to be a sloppy attempt at a hug that he only half commits to, perhaps because he realizes after he started it that he forgot to ask if it was okay. “I had a question I wanted to ask you, and I think I’ll forget it if I wait so. Well.”

He takes a moment to gather his thoughts. Longer than he usually does.

“Yes?” Kratos prompts.

“What do you think about going to Meltokio?”

Kratos’ heart nearly stops.

( _“I think you should head to Meltokio, as soon as you get the chance.”_ )

Lloyd keeps talking before Kratos can answer.

“I was talking to Seles,” he says, “and she agrees that if we wanna stop the war—which I didn’t sign up for exactly but I figure I might as well try at this point! Haha!” Kratos wonders if that’s the alcohol talking or—no, actually. Lloyd would make an impulsive decision like this even completely sober.

( _If anything’s talking, it’s Anna’s blood_.)

“ANYWAY!” Lloyd says, in general louder and more hyper than normal. “Meltokio’s probably a good place to start, Seles said. _Also._ Mithos talked to me last night and he said I should head there?? He didn’t say why just that there was someone I should met which _really_ wasn’t that helpful since he didn’t say _who_ or how to _find them_ but—”

If Kratos hadn’t stopped breathing, he’d ask how the hell Lloyd managed to speak to Mithos last night. But he’s too caught up on the fact they both got told they have someone waiting for Meltokio for them. Who the hell do he and Lloyd have in common to meet?

( _Only one person, but that’s impossible, isn’t it? Isn’t it?_ )

Lloyd squints up at him. “You… you good?”

It’s too much to explain and Kratos’ mind spins too rapidly to try and pin any of it down.

“Meltokio sounds fine,” he tells Lloyd.

Lloyd grins.

“Great!!!” He elbows Kratos playfully and much harder than he probably would have had he been sober. “We’ll worry about the details tomorrow though. Now we should celebrate!!”

It’s an invitation, Kratos thinks, but he’ll pass.

“If you have another glass of wine, you’re grounded,” he tells Lloyd.

Lloyd sticks his tongue out at him as he goes back to mingling and- and dancing with Zelos. Unsurprising, but… Kratos has half a mind to be worried. Except, actually, it’s barely an eighth of his mind. Too much of his thoughts are consumed by Meltokio and…

He reaches for the locket again, opening it to see Anna’s face, even if he remembers Anna looking much livelier than this.

( _He wonders how many times the Architect has stared at this same picture. He wonders—too many things, each too large for him, things he should really put down—_ )

“Kratos?” comes Colette’s voice, cautious.

Kratos drops the locket again, but perhaps not fast enough this time.

“Isn’t that… Origin’s?” Colette asks.

Kratos doesn’t answer right away, still reeling from how rapidly his ether is pulsing.

“Kratos?” Colette presses.

“It… yes,” Kratos manages to make himself say. “He… He left it.”

“You seem really distracted by it…” Colette’s voice pitches with worry, her big blue eyes staring up and Kratos with her concern.

Kratos grunts. Truthfully, he thinks it would be better for his peace of mind if he tossed it in the nearest ocean, but _not_ keeping it seems at best rude and at worst like he’s being dishonest to himself, so he pushes idle thoughts like that out of his mind before long, and then he sighs. He doesn’t know what to do about it.

“Maybe… you should put it in your pocket, or something?” Colette suggests, still concerned as she studies him, almost like she can read his mind. (With some effort, he has to remind himself that it’s not like Martel is there to help her do that anymore, so apparently Colette is just immensely perceptive.) “That way it won’t be so tempting to stare at.”

“That’s… fair,” Kratos relents, at length.

There’s logic in what she’s suggesting, after all. So he reaches up and—carefully, he doesn’t want to break it—and undoes the clasp of the chain, then places the locket in his pocket. The weight of it still presses against him, but not quite as distractingly, and it’d be much harder to retrieve and idly stare at now.

Kratos sighs, and turns his attention again to his companion.

“Was there something you needed, Colette?” he asks.

“Oh!” She blushes faintly. “Yeah, actually, it was just… I saw you over here, by yourself, and um. Well. I got to thinking that if Martel were still here, she’d probably tell you to…” She stops abruptly, like she’s tasted the upcoming words and doesn’t like the taste at all.

Kratos has a pretty good idea what the words are, though.

“To get my head out of my ass and enjoy the party?” he guesses. It _does_ sound like something Martel would say, enough that he can hear it in her voice.

Colette blushes a little harder and bobs her head as she nods. “Yeah, that!” she laughs. “So, well… I was wondering if maybe you wanted to dance with me?”

Kratos raises his eyebrows.

Colette smiles at him, eyes wide and persistent. “Just one dance,” she promises. “You should relax and celebrate, too! Yuan got married! Our journey’s finally over! Isn’t that worth a dance?”

It’s… really, truly, impossible to say no to that face.

Kratos sighs, and smiles faintly.

“I suppose it is,” he agrees, and he takes Colette’s hand.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for coming along with me on this ride, everyone!!! This is an AU me and my friends spent months lovingly crafting, and I'm very glad to have the main portion out in the world, finally!!!! I HOPE..... YOU ENJOYED IT.......!!!!
> 
> a collection of art / playlists / notes can be found at [the series tag here!](http://rarmaster.tumblr.com/tagged/toxc2-au) there's serious spoilers, but obviously y'all have finished reading by this point so don't worry about it!
> 
> Also please please PLEASE check out my friend Ruri's [companion pieces to this work](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17086295). I REFERENCED A LOT OF THIS LORE IN THE MAIN FIC, ACTUALLY,
> 
>  
> 
> [if it's to your fancy, you can read 20k+ words of notes on this fic (ft memes and screenshots of jokes that filled the gc) here!!!](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cIgeJ9L2kdJJ3eIOpYjKvT_3NJgGKGrL_FttmrDme6s/edit#)


	7. Chapter 7

“Hey, you got a sec?”

The woman sitting at the table, bent over a stack of papers she’s furiously notating, doesn’t even pause to look up at her blade.

“Yeah?”

“I just got a message that um, in approximately a week, we’re gonna receive a visit from someone we know.”

A surprised, humor-filled hum. “Really now?” the woman asks. She looks up, eyebrows raised towards her blade, not sure if he’s shitting her or not. “And who’s this message from?”

“Uh, some lady from my dreams?”

“Whaaaaat? Some dreamgirl? Last I checked, you were gay and married.”

“Fuckin hell—” Her blade grumbles, then cuts off, glaring up a storm. “No, like. A woman visited me, in my dreams, and gave me the message.”

The woman sitting at the table laughs, clearly having a great time messing with her blade. Then she squints. “Did she say _who_ it is we’re receiving a visit from?”

“No. Which was _real_ helpful of her, I’ll say.” Sarcasm is thick in his voice.

“Welp.” She shrugs and goes back to her paperwork. “They’ll get here when they get here, I suppose.” She writes a few things, then stops, sitting up straighter. “Hey, you don’t think…?”

“What?” her blade asks, then catches her train of thought. “Come on, you really think after fifteen years, we’re just going to _bump into him_?”

“Hey, if some lady’s popping into _your_ dreams to tell you we’re going to have guests, don’t you think it’s just as likely she popped by his dreams first? Nudged him in our direction? There’s no reason it _can’t_ be him.”

“You just want to see him again.”

“Of course I do!! He's my husband.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> consider this a teaser for what's to come..........


End file.
